#977 - Jeff Evans & Bud Brutsman

[0] You can go right out your door and be in the most awesome hiking spot ever.

[1] And we're live, ladies and gentlemen.

[2] Thank you.

[3] Thank you for joining NPR.

[4] Please.

[5] No, I don't want to do that.

[6] Bud Brestman, Jeff Evans, Bud Bredsman, good friend of mine, next door neighbor.

[7] And Jeff Evans, his buddy, who apparently has lived a fucking crazy life, rescuing people off at Everest, traveling up there.

[8] And Bud told me we were at this little carnival with our kids.

[9] He's like, got to get this guy on.

[10] Got to talk to him.

[11] So, no pressure.

[12] Yeah.

[13] Your arm got put behind your back.

[14] No, it didn't.

[15] It sounded good.

[16] I was interested.

[17] Bring this asshole on your show.

[18] How did you get involved with, first of all, when was the first time you summit at Everest?

[19] 2001.

[20] God damn, man. How many times have you done it?

[21] Just once.

[22] Just, good move.

[23] But I kind of get a 1 .5 because I had a blind dude with me. Yeah.

[24] So you took a blind dude all the way to the top.

[25] Why didn't you take him like halfway?

[26] Yeah.

[27] Blow in his face.

[28] Dude, you made it.

[29] You're one of the.

[30] rare ones.

[31] The funny part was we got to the top and we were like, man, we can see the curvature of the earth from here, bro.

[32] And he goes, I don't give a shit.

[33] Like, I want to get out of here.

[34] I can't see anything.

[35] I want to go.

[36] That's weird.

[37] That's actually not true.

[38] What he said is, hey, Eric, take a look around.

[39] Take a look around.

[40] Was it instinctual?

[41] Or were you just fucking with him?

[42] I mean, I think it was a little bit of both.

[43] I kind of instinctively fuck with him.

[44] Right.

[45] We've been bros for a long time.

[46] I mean, it's a very fraternal relationship that we have.

[47] So I, by nature, just sort of automatically fuck with this guy.

[48] And I enjoy it, and he enjoys it back, because he is super blonde dude.

[49] You know, the whole world loves him, Samaric, and I'm probably one of the few people that just kick him in the nuts, you know.

[50] Give him a little bit of a hard time.

[51] Yeah.

[52] Yeah, if you're a blind dude that climbs about Everest, people just give you a free pass, a lot of stuff.

[53] I'm telling you that.

[54] He climbed, what else he climbed?

[55] Well, he's done a bunch of stuff, but he just kayaked the Grand Canyon two years ago in his own boat the whole thing 277 miles what do you have a guy behind him going left right left right like you do skiing and they had you know these ear pieces and you know he asked me to go but i'm like that's i'll climb others but i sure it's fucking going to take you down the grand can there's something that people really love about someone risking their life and then pulling it off right something assuming you pull it off yeah assuming yeah if you don't then you make one of those instagram greatest fails yeah they were telling us before we went up there like you know, blind dude's going to die.

[56] And when he dies, what do you think was going to happen?

[57] They were telling that, too?

[58] Oh, yeah, we heard that.

[59] Who, the Sherpas or who?

[60] No, no, just the Everest experts, you know.

[61] Remember, this is back in 01.

[62] This was when Everest was super dangerous.

[63] It was a little bit more raw than it is now.

[64] How is that?

[65] What has happened?

[66] Because on the outside, what I've seen is all the exposés that show all the human waste that they leave behind and including actual shit, right?

[67] And the tents and people pay people to kind of do.

[68] do all the hard work and then you just kind of show up and still hard, right, but not as hard.

[69] You got to put in, you know, you got to put in the steps.

[70] You got to put in the work, but it's so commercialized that it's been diluted to a certain extent.

[71] And, you know, I am a Sherpa advocate to the core.

[72] You know, these guys do the work.

[73] I mean, they put it in every single day.

[74] They're humping the loads.

[75] They're cooking the food.

[76] they're setting the lines.

[77] They're taking the biggest risk and then allowing, you know, other folks to move through a little bit more effectively and faster and, you know, not have to expend as much energy.

[78] And so over the, we kind of got in there in 01 towards, I think, I think on the head of the curve just a little bit as to when it started to sort of change.

[79] The face of ever has changed a little bit.

[80] So how do they make it easier?

[81] Like, what do they do that made it more commercial?

[82] Yeah.

[83] money number one gets in there and and pays a lot more Sherpas to do a lot more work so the lines are fixed the weather forecasting models are more effective and more efficient wouldn't say the lines are fixed the lines are fixed meaning the ropes the ropes on the mountain oh they're all get fixed in yeah you clip into ropes when you go up okay so the ropes are there before you get there all you have to do is just kind of like hoof it so it's not like before so you kind of wow that's weird so it's almost like you're on like a theme park.

[84] You're still in Everest and you still can get fucked up by an avalanche, right?

[85] There's no question.

[86] It's very dangerous.

[87] There's no way to mitigate all of that.

[88] But, you know, it's a, it has been, it has been eased up a little bit.

[89] The edges have been taken off just a slight bit.

[90] But it also adds that they're dangerous because if I was looking at it, it's sometimes more dangerous now because there's lines.

[91] There's sometimes 300 people, 600 people in a line.

[92] Yeah.

[93] And you're waiting from some asshole who didn't train.

[94] and you're watching him try to climb up this little 20 -foot cliff and they don't know how to work a jumar they can't climb what's a juma it's a hand it's an ascending device it's like a one -way ascending device to go up a rope so you can slide it up and it catches on the way down and then you use a pull but there people go up there when we were up there they've people they literally without talking shit about trekking companies there are some companies like all right we're going to show you how to put your crampons um as you're going on the icefall they've never they've learned like we're going to learn we're going to they've never had crampons before we we had to Jeff not me Jeff had to rescue risk his life in helicopters going to high high altitude to pick up people who shouldn't no business on the mountain so they didn't manage to get their body acclimated is that what the issue is not that they didn't put in the the apprenticeship because you know nowadays the commercial component allows folks that have enough money to pay and then show up and get guided basically to the top.

[95] So back in the day, it was, you know, if you didn't have your teeth cut, you know, it was on you.

[96] And nowadays you can just show up and, you know, generally someone will be taken care of you, whether it's a guide or whether it's a Sherpa.

[97] And so, you know, it's changed.

[98] But, you know, I don't, I don't want to take anything from the folks who still go out there.

[99] It's a dream for so many people, you know.

[100] It's still an aspiration and a life goal for, you know a lot of folks and it's still very difficult yeah and so for instance last year we just saw i mean we saw a really nice cross section of of skilled experienced climbers trying it but then we saw a shit show you know we saw a lot of folks who should have been on other peaks first and then they weren't they skipped to the top you know right you know anything in life you know you bypass the work and you get smoked yeah yeah we did a we our rescue team um a rs RACTCMR 5 Sherpas did the highest altitude rescue in history at 28 ,500 off the balcony and a girl, husband and wife, I don't know if they did, did she summit?

[101] I don't think she summited though.

[102] She was coming down to summit.

[103] Summets at 2935.

[104] She's at 28500 and she decides to sit down.

[105] Her husband left her.

[106] She's tapped out.

[107] Husband left her.

[108] People quit.

[109] Yeah, people quit.

[110] So she sat down, but she sat down and he left her?

[111] Oh, wait.

[112] There's more of that story.

[113] So he left her and then we go rescue.

[114] What did he say?

[115] Do you say sit right here?

[116] I'll be back in a couple days?

[117] This is up for questions.

[118] It's like there's two ways to look at.

[119] We were talking about this last night was she may have just been a tap -out bitch and just said, I quit.

[120] And he tried to, please, come on, come on, come on.

[121] And finally just left her.

[122] That's one scenario.

[123] The other scenario is, you know, he just was like, peace out, good luck.

[124] I'm out.

[125] Here's the problem.

[126] I do it this way.

[127] And I understand about diving.

[128] So let's say you and I are diving.

[129] We're 300 feet below the water, right?

[130] my air goes out and I know we can buddy breathe but let's pretend there's no buddy breathing and you're going to stick around and watch me die and you're going to end up dying or I'm going to grab a hold of you and grab your regulator and you're we're both going to die you can't help anybody at that level you can't you're you're tired your body is eating itself you're basically dying in the death zone he can explain that basically and if your if your wife says I'm sitting down I'm going to get up in five minutes you go ahead and she's got a Sherpa with her and then you go I go ahead and you get back to Camp 4 which is exactly what happened get down to Camp 4 and look around your wife's not there holy shit and then they call us and they wake Jeff and I up and we're like you're gonna what so I was I was with her right at base camp when she when we delivered her to her husband and I was trying to gauge like is he going to be one of these guys it's like oh my God I'm so glad you're alive or holy shit she's live.

[131] Oh, fuck, you know.

[132] And I think it was the former.

[133] I think he was really ecstatic.

[134] He was crying.

[135] Remember, he was really upset?

[136] But then...

[137] Hold on.

[138] Well, we got to go back down.

[139] No, no, no, no. It goes back.

[140] Because actually the first kick in the ball, so without taking the whole thing to do this.

[141] So what had to happen is Jeff and I and our base camp manager, Anthony, had to take four Sherpas from camp two, or Camp four, took two sherps.

[142] and then two more in the middle of the night so six o 'clock seven o 'clock at night the most dangerous winds are blowing 30 40 miles an hour it's 20 degrees below zero nobody nobody's ever done you don't do it and we sent them up there and we said can you go get her oh god so and you got to find this person on the line so they walked they kept walking and they kept walking and we have video remember mima's video how long does it take to get up the line like how normal normal human being you the three of us?

[143] How long would it take the three of us to get from the south call to where she was?

[144] Probably three or four hours.

[145] If you're in shape.

[146] So take me out of that.

[147] You're a runner, yeah, but I'm not doing any high altitude hiking.

[148] Give me five hours.

[149] Okay.

[150] So it's like very dangerous.

[151] Extremely dangerous, especially at night.

[152] At the worst time.

[153] At the worst time, not even, no one knows where she is.

[154] No, but the terrain dictates that she has.

[155] But the terrain dictates that she has to be unless she's falling off the side she's on a spine basically and and you know if you go up the ridge you're either going to find her if she's alive or she's tossed off the side so she and also she's dealing with super low air no air excreasing extremely cold no air a third of what you got do they bring tanks yeah but her air was gone so you're drinking you're she brought no air with her or the air she brought with her she was done she was abandoned basically so they left her so you know Generally, you would have somebody with an extra tank to be able to help her out.

[156] But I get the sense that she just said, I'm done.

[157] And she sat down and everybody tried to get, and then no one could get her to get up.

[158] And they didn't want to walk back with her?

[159] You can't carry.

[160] You probably tried, but you can't carry somebody at 29 ,000 feet, 28 ,000 feet.

[161] So keep going.

[162] So the oxygen up there is 33 % less than what's here at sea level.

[163] 33%.

[164] I mean, it's at 33%.

[165] So it's 67 % less.

[166] A third, yeah.

[167] Yeah.

[168] Wow.

[169] Normal oxygen.

[170] She was no one.

[171] walks and so she sat down so the boys we have go pros on them we had special cameras and pockets and all kinds of weird shit to film on the mountain and the boys are walking i have footage of mima mingma's walking up there and he's going i swear to god i swear to god i'll say this for you he speaks decent english the whole time and i'll send you the clip it's the funniest clip you ever seen he's up damn mother fucking fucking fucking mother he's just cussing every step of the way he's pissed off it's a it's a fucked up scenario yeah and you know it's middle of the night he's looking for some, you know, potentially dead person in the death zone.

[172] Yeah, in the death zone.

[173] It's not a cool situation.

[174] Why is it the death zone?

[175] Because of the oxygen?

[176] Because of the lack of oxygen, yeah.

[177] Your body starts to conspire against you.

[178] I mean, you, you know, you can't assimilate any nutrition.

[179] You know, the fluid in your body starts to go to places it's not supposed to go.

[180] Think about that.

[181] So it goes up in your brain and you get cerebral edema and you make bad decisions and you get a headache and you lose your vision.

[182] and then you get pulmonary edema, your lungs fill up with fluid, and you're drowning in your own fluid.

[183] You know, it's a...

[184] This is like stepping out of the spade capsule at Mars and I wonder what this is going to do to my body and you step out and shit starts popping.

[185] It's strange up there.

[186] Wow.

[187] They've done MRI studies, actually.

[188] So that's where it is right there?

[189] This is the line that Jamie pulled up over to the death zone.

[190] Lack of oxygen above 8 ,000 meters can be fatal to climbers.

[191] So see that last...

[192] 8 ,000 feet is fucking high.

[193] 8 ,000 meters.

[194] That's insane.

[195] See that last dot before the summit?

[196] That's 26 ,000 feet, which is right there.

[197] Yeah, exactly, Jamie.

[198] And is that where she was above that?

[199] That's where the camp was.

[200] And that's the balcony right in there.

[201] Oh, she was almost there.

[202] 500 feet.

[203] She was 500 feet from the top?

[204] She may have.

[205] Who knows?

[206] I don't know if she made it.

[207] She was at 28 ,500.

[208] And we have a GPS coordinate on it.

[209] She was a 28 ,500 feet from the top.

[210] So she could almost say she summited Everest.

[211] She's like she could see it.

[212] Like Everest was like where your car is parked.

[213] Yeah.

[214] except there's a lot of crazy -ass terrain between where she was and across.

[215] That's where the Hillary step is, and that's where the ridge goes.

[216] It's no louder than your laptop in sections, and it's a 10 ,000 foot drop into Tibet to the right and a 6 ,000 foot dropping it in Nepal to the left.

[217] Either way, it would hurt pretty fucking back.

[218] It's as wide as a laptop.

[219] In sections, it's pretty narrow, you know.

[220] But then it, you know, it opens up and it shrinks down.

[221] But, I mean, it's no place to screw the pooch, you know, and she did.

[222] So, oh my God, this is it right here?

[223] Well, that's the Hillary step right there, which, by the way, this is really interesting.

[224] Two years ago, remember the earthquake two years ago in Nepal?

[225] So it knocked that whole boulder off.

[226] That boulder that people are standing on right there?

[227] That's the Hillary stuff.

[228] Imagine if you're on that.

[229] You're like, I made it.

[230] Yeah!

[231] You're going for the ride.

[232] That's the peak of Everest.

[233] Maybe you, bro.

[234] I'll fucking hop off and grab a whole.

[235] I'm just kidding.

[236] You wingsuit.

[237] Maybe you, bro.

[238] So that's, uh, look at that.

[239] Look at that clown show.

[240] Oh, my gosh.

[241] There's so many people.

[242] So if someone falls onto you, you've got a real problem, too.

[243] Yeah, so the year we were up there in 2000, the year before, the fall before, there was a British guy.

[244] I can't remember his name, but he got caught up in the ropes descending from the summit down the Hillary step and got caught.

[245] And there was nobody there with him.

[246] And he got caught, caught, and he got stuck.

[247] Like in perpetuity.

[248] Yeah.

[249] So we thought that for sure the first people that were going up in 01 that were a few weeks before us had to cut him free because we were, you know, we're speculating like if we're the first group that gets up there, we're going to have to scoot around this fellow, you know.

[250] Whoa.

[251] So he's just stuck on this line.

[252] But he wasn't there when we got up there.

[253] He wasn't somebody who already come free?

[254] Now, what do they do?

[255] He pushed him off the side?

[256] Well, here's something for Jamie.

[257] So there's 248 bodies on Everest right now, still there.

[258] And these climbers, I didn't go.

[259] up.

[260] I was at base camp.

[261] The climbers use them as markers.

[262] Right.

[263] You kind of go up here.

[264] Isn't the original climber?

[265] The guy for the first guy to make it?

[266] Well, they found one.

[267] Yeah, but he's on the South Summit.

[268] He's on the other side.

[269] On the north side in Tibet.

[270] Mallory.

[271] Yeah.

[272] Mallory.

[273] They found Mallory's body.

[274] They didn't find Erwin's body.

[275] Just his back, right?

[276] His back.

[277] It's still there.

[278] Frozen solid.

[279] It's weird.

[280] Yeah.

[281] It's like ivory skin.

[282] Yeah.

[283] It's still flesh.

[284] Like, still flesh there.

[285] But the crow perfectly, it's cryogenically frozen.

[286] The crows pick at them, they eat them, there's crows at that, at that altitude.

[287] They pick at him?

[288] Yeah, this guy?

[289] Yeah, that's Mallory.

[290] Jesus, look at that.

[291] That's so weird.

[292] But that dude's a bad dude, man. That is a very bad man right there because they went out with some hobnail boots and some marginal equipment.

[293] And everybody was telling them that they were going to be dead for sure.

[294] And they said, we're going to charge ahead.

[295] And they did.

[296] I mean, this was back, way back, man. This was in the 20s, right?

[297] And there's the controversy that he...

[298] Look at that boot.

[299] The controversy is that they...

[300] summited first, but they can't prove it.

[301] So that's a big controversy.

[302] They thought Irvine and Mallory summited, and then they fell on their way down.

[303] So crows pick at him?

[304] Oh, yeah.

[305] But obviously, he's still there.

[306] Yeah, I mean, I don't think they get at him as much.

[307] But there's, you know, there's things, there's just, there's a lot of stuff there.

[308] You know, I ain't going to lie to you.

[309] There's a lot happening there.

[310] Look at that.

[311] That's sitting on the mountain.

[312] You have to walk past that.

[313] That's intense.

[314] I mean, I don't see that guy.

[315] You've never seen that guy?

[316] I didn't see that guy.

[317] How many of the 200 -plus bodies have you seen up there?

[318] Well, you know, the conditions change so dramatically over each season, depending on snowfall.

[319] Whoa, look at that dude.

[320] Jesus.

[321] There's some creepy things up there.

[322] Zoom out on that dude's face.

[323] I mean, there's...

[324] He looks happy.

[325] Ah, I made it.

[326] I don't think he...

[327] Nice jacket.

[328] That's pretty fresh.

[329] That's a nice looking down seat.

[330] Yeah.

[331] That's what I'm saying.

[332] Like, how many people die a year?

[333] Well, I think the average is, you know, nowadays is usually, I think, I think, I think, I think somewhere under 10, you know, between six and ten every season.

[334] How many people attempt it?

[335] I think it, the grade is increasing every year.

[336] I think this year was the most that summited, the most attempted and most summited, was this year.

[337] And I think close to 300 people summited this year.

[338] Pull that picture up again, that image of deaths, Sherpas and regular folks.

[339] So a lot of the Sherpas died too, huh?

[340] Yeah, well, I mean, there they go.

[341] They're higher in concentration.

[342] They do the majority of the work.

[343] Fuck, man. Well, and that's one of the reasons why we went out there.

[344] We saved more Sherpas, and we pulled a lot of Sherpas off because more often than not, they don't have helicopters, and they don't have helicopter insurance.

[345] And so we would go, and I would pay for it.

[346] They would go, there's a Sherpa who's really sick, and he's going to die, and then Jeff and I would just decide to pull him off.

[347] The other thing they don't have is they don't have life insurance, and you can imagine.

[348] So a lot of these families, a lot of the Nepali and the high -altitude workers' families, they lose their only source of income when these guys get killed.

[349] So actually a friend of mine, Melissa Arnott, who was the first American woman to summit Everest without oxygen just last year, she started a fund called the Juniper Fund.

[350] And it actually compensates the families when their loved ones are killed on the mountains.

[351] And it's good.

[352] It keeps them straight.

[353] Because they don't have a choice.

[354] This is high altitude.

[355] You live in that area.

[356] You're going to be a Sherpa or a Porter.

[357] Yeah.

[358] The highest level you can be, you're a Sherpa.

[359] You're a guide.

[360] Wow.

[361] So what happened to this lady again?

[362] Oh, yeah.

[363] Okay, all right.

[364] So Mingma goes up there.

[365] They're walking up there and they need some help.

[366] So they, and I have it all on video.

[367] And he's going, fuck, motherfucker.

[368] Oh, he's pissed.

[369] It's so funniest thing in the world.

[370] It's a comedy show.

[371] So then they hear music.

[372] Not kidding.

[373] They hear music.

[374] So she has a phone on her.

[375] I don't know how the battery is lasting.

[376] And she's sitting at the balcony, butt on the ice, and just barely breathing.

[377] and listen to the music and then so they go to her like rihanna or some shit no it was some kind of indian music kind of kirk curry rock or whatever the hell it was um and then she indian yeah she was indian her name her you don't want to say her name man well no she's been a disparager she's she's a lot she's good she's a lot she's stoked she sent me a christmas card okay yeah no that's nice yeah very cool christmas card with her kid so what happened so then they get to her and and then they start calling her mama they're like mama mama mama you need to wake up you need to wake up we're going she's like no no it's all in video like leave me alone leave me alone i don't want to do it i don't want to do it i don't want to do it and then they put oxygen down there crank up the bottle try to get some blood flow and get stuff going they sit up there at 8 000 feet 35 minutes 45 minutes oh jesus trying to coax her yep trying to coax her to get her down and now is it because of her personality or is it because she's so like so diminished cognitively things go south too right so she She probably had pretty profound cerebral edema, so her decision -making was in the toilet.

[378] So you become really apathetic.

[379] And it's impossible to carry someone down.

[380] You can't carry someone down.

[381] You can lower them down, which is what happened.

[382] You can tie a rope to their harness and short -rope them down with two or three dudes, like, working really, really hard, and sort of lowering her down.

[383] And that's how they got her down.

[384] You know, she quit, and a lot of people quit.

[385] I worked search and rescue in Alaska on Denali for years, and you'd be amazed at how many people are.

[386] just like done, you know, and they just lay down and they're done because they're not rational enough to know, like, if I sit down and I just take just a little bitty nap, you ain't getting back up.

[387] You're taking a snow nap and you're done, you know, and that's, snow nap.

[388] Yeah, the old snow nap.

[389] Oh, I don't like that sound.

[390] That's a weird term.

[391] But with hypothermia, the interesting thing that happens is you get euphoric, right?

[392] You go through this stage of super cold, super cold and then your core temperature drops low enough to where euphoria comes in so oftentimes those same people we would find are undressed so you get hot you get warm so their gloves come off the hats come off the pants and unzipped and you know everybody's everybody's buck naked on the side of the mountain right before they die right before they die so i mean not that i want to go out that way but you know i can think a worse way it's like it's euphoric apparently wow because we've also pulled people back I've seen multiple times when we've pulled people back and they discussed that.

[393] They described it.

[394] And then we start re -warming their frostbite and then it's not right after that.

[395] That hurts.

[396] Turns out that hurts.

[397] When you re -thost up.

[398] Frostbite is so horrible to look at, too.

[399] Oh, she's just see the stuff we had to see.

[400] And her fingers are still half fingers are off.

[401] She got messed up pretty good.

[402] Yeah, she sent me pictures.

[403] She's missing fingers?

[404] Missing tips, yeah.

[405] She's lucky.

[406] Some of the phalangeses are gone.

[407] chopped off so they got her down they ended up hours and hours and hours and we're tracking and we're trying to talk to them they get her down to camp four which is that track that you saw then the trickiest part as he'll tell you because i can't tell you camp four to camp three yeah camp four to camp three and then camp three to camp two which they didn't even do they couldn't get they couldn't get to camp two which is straight on the lozzi face it's a it's a it's about a 60 60 degree ice face, which is slick.

[408] So when you're roping somebody down, you know, it actually does provide, you know, less friction.

[409] You can actually slide somebody down, but you can't get going too fast, you know.

[410] So now you're 26, 27 ,000 feet.

[411] You're 130 pound, 125 pounds, and you've got to lower this 200 pound lady down, hard oxygen.

[412] These guys are working their ass off.

[413] Wait a minute.

[414] She's 200 pounds?

[415] Well, no, she wasn't that big.

[416] But, you know, with all her gear and all her shit on, yeah.

[417] I mean, she was 160, 170 pounds worth of weight, you know, dead weight, just getting lowered down.

[418] So we got her down.

[419] We got her down to where we could go in with the helicopter.

[420] And we picked her up and took her back down to base camp.

[421] And that was when the meeting took place between her and her husband, the tearful rejoicing.

[422] No, though.

[423] So the part you missed was the helicopter landed it.

[424] It couldn't land at camp, too.

[425] We weren't supposed to go up to 23 ,500, which is the base of Lutti cramp on point.

[426] Andrew got there and said I can only pick one of you And she looked at her husband and said You stay Wow And so she made him stay And take the next helicopter out So we got her down She looked at her husband and said you stay He was like bitch you quit Well she was mad because she got left She was pissed off to she got left She was pissed that she got left But he couldn't have carried her No that's you're switching It depends There's ways looking at it both ways Somebody quit Somebody gave up Somebody said no I mean, who knows?

[427] But I'm sure they had to go through some deep -ass therapy when they got home.

[428] Okay, so I'm going to fill in the gaps here.

[429] So fast forward, nine or ten months.

[430] And dude, husband has a heart attack and dies.

[431] So he died.

[432] I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing at that.

[433] That's kind of fucked up.

[434] It is kind of fucked up.

[435] But, man, you made it to Everest and then you fucking.

[436] But what's the karma, though?

[437] They left her?

[438] I mean, maybe.

[439] But what is he going to do?

[440] If he doesn't leave her, what does he do?

[441] He sits out there with her?

[442] He wasn't told people that she's up there and she's alive.

[443] And he panicked.

[444] He was panicking on the phone.

[445] He was there.

[446] I don't know.

[447] We talked about it last night.

[448] It's the romantic story.

[449] You huddle up with your girl and you're going to die together.

[450] Whoa.

[451] Right?

[452] And then, or you go down there and try to get her saved and you get rid of killed for leaving her.

[453] It's easy to Monday morning quarterback any of those situations because all bets off when you get above 26 ,000 feet.

[454] I mean, it's, it is.

[455] You're, you're kind of hanging on a little bit, and that's why, you know, you get these big, into thin air stories that happen, and no one really can remember exactly the details, and, you know, it's a little bit sketchy.

[456] Like, I, my intentions were, and I did, and you did.

[457] And, I mean, summit nights on 26 ,000 foot peaks, there's always, there's always variables that come into play, and it turns into theater.

[458] I mean, it's a stage.

[459] People make choices, people make mistakes.

[460] We had that one guy on, what's her fate, again, Grace's team, he was a triathlete.

[461] He went up, broke a bunch of rules, respectfully.

[462] Oh, with regards to climatization and stuff.

[463] Climidization pushed himself too much.

[464] Summitted, got back down and died in his tent.

[465] Oh.

[466] His fifth attempt up there.

[467] You can look it up.

[468] It's on the end of that.

[469] His fifth attempt up there pushed himself way too hard.

[470] The rules are.

[471] If you don't make it to a certain point by a certain time, you should turn around and save your life and come back another day.

[472] And he said no. He said, no, I'm pushing through.

[473] Got to the summit too late, came back, really exhausted, 16, 17 hour a day, died in a tent.

[474] He was 35 years old.

[475] What did he die from?

[476] Exposure, cerebral edema.

[477] He might have thrown a clot.

[478] I mean, I don't know.

[479] I don't know the autopsy, but, I mean, he, you know, it was something fairly acute.

[480] You know, it wasn't just exhaustion.

[481] You know, it wasn't just hypothermia.

[482] He made it back to the tent and then just expires.

[483] in the tent.

[484] So I'm not sure.

[485] I mean, there's a lot of things that can go wrong.

[486] And you have a small window to get it right.

[487] What is good about it?

[488] Well, about what?

[489] Summining a big ass mountain.

[490] Yeah.

[491] You know, I think that's a tough question.

[492] It's a pretty nebulous thing.

[493] It's very subjective.

[494] It's very selfish.

[495] There's no, you know, there's no chance.

[496] I used to climb pretty hard, and then I had a kid.

[497] And my sense of objective risk changed significantly at that.

[498] point because climbing by nature is a very selfish pursuit you're going out there to do something that is bring it brings me joy and it brings me fulfillment and it gives me a sense of connection to the people that i'm sharing a rope with because we're on a rope man i mean we're gonna win together lose together i mean it's but jeff doesn't do it selfishly and not you give all these climbers shit like that's a very selfish thing to do for him but he did it because Eric did it.

[499] Eric wanted to do it.

[500] So he's like, oh, you're a selfish prick.

[501] You summited Everest.

[502] He goes, no, I've helped my blind friend go to the Everest.

[503] It really wasn't his goal.

[504] His goal was to help the first blind guy to summit.

[505] And everybody on my team.

[506] It wasn't just me. I had an amazing team.

[507] It was, you know, with all our Sherpas on Summit Day, we were 19 of us.

[508] And at that point, I think this record still stands.

[509] We're still the highest number from one team in one day to stand on top together.

[510] and I attribute that to the fact that just as you said bud like that was just a bunch of bros who weren't commercially guided we were just friends and we were there for something that was bigger than us we were there for Eric we wanted to get him as high up as we could and get him back down and if that meant the summit awesome if not you know we'll come back and we'll still be bros and maybe we'll go do some other cool shit you know I mean that so what happens when you don't go up there for me to plant my flag is we got the summit i got to stand on top you know it's pretty pretty cool um what is the feeling like when you get to that top and you realize that you have summited mount everest when you're up there and you're looking around you're like holy shit top of the world ma well just like so many other times with him and the stuff that i've done with eric um i was worried about him getting down that's all i was obsessing on it because there was a storm coming in and we heard all the radio chatter.

[511] How much time do you have for the storm?

[512] I mean, the shit is barreling.

[513] I mean, it is moving quick from the, from Tibet across.

[514] I mean, we could see it coming.

[515] It was probably 9, 10 in the morning.

[516] And, you know, that's early.

[517] And when it comes out early, the monsoon, the edge of the monsoon, this is late May, so the monsoon starts to pick up in late May, you don't want to be anywhere near.

[518] But, Joe, you talk about all the time, the adrenaline dump.

[519] So imagine adrenaline dump in a cage.

[520] that you talk about all the time.

[521] Now you just summon to Mount Everest, but you're only halfway done.

[522] 80 % of all mountaineering accidents happen on the descent.

[523] Wow.

[524] 80%.

[525] Why is that?

[526] Because your decision making is compromised and...

[527] Yep.

[528] And you did what you went to do.

[529] You're done.

[530] You know, you're like, oh, you relax.

[531] You just kind of take your eyes off.

[532] It's adrenaline.

[533] You're like, I did it.

[534] And all of a sudden, they're like, I'm going to get down.

[535] That's way more technical.

[536] To be honest with you, that's somewhat of a rookie move um and i you know experience climbers always know to have a little bit more in the tank you know it's just like a fighter right you know you got to save some for the fifth round right and you got to you got to know that it's coming and it's going to hurt right um it's going to hurt bad and i remember my legs like i was they were jelly man i mean trying to come down from the hillary stuff and i was just jacked i was like the gumbie man coming down and i actually fell i fell onto a fixed rope right up right below the or right above the hillary stuff yeah I got caught by a rope, and it was one of the only times I clipped in that whole day.

[537] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[538] It was, it was kooky shit.

[539] Did you clip in because you felt like your body was getting a little wishy -washing?

[540] Once again, I knew, like, a little bit not right.

[541] I shot my wad coming up.

[542] I dug some ropes out with my buddy Brad Bull for the team earlier that morning that were buried.

[543] We were the first people up, and we were the first people up, and all these ropes were buried, and we were digging them out.

[544] in the ice and they were buried under a foot to two foot of snow at 28 ,000 feet and I made Brad and I made that decision to to dig those ropes out because not to know which way to go up but to make sure they were there for the descent because that's when the weather comes in and that's when the blind lead the blind down you know so we dug the ropes up and I knew when I did that that I was going to be out of gas and sure enough like coming down I knew it so that's when I was clipping in.

[545] I was a little bit more fastidious on making sure if I fell that I'd be caught.

[546] Sure enough I fell on the rope and then got back up.

[547] I was like, good night that woke me up.

[548] Did you get a jolt?

[549] Yeah, yeah.

[550] Shake it off or look around and go, God damn, I wonder if anybody saw that.

[551] And then like started it back down?

[552] So is it the appeal of like accomplishing some of the very few people accomplished and joining like a very special club?

[553] Is that what what motivates these people?

[554] Is it just a really difficult task and they want to see if they have it in them?

[555] I mean, obviously, everybody's got a subjective answer to that.

[556] And mine is I like to be with my people in the hills.

[557] That's my church.

[558] That's where I feel the most comfortable.

[559] It's where I feel safe, actually, in the hills, right?

[560] Because you know you're around other very rugged people?

[561] Well, just people who make good decisions, you know?

[562] And then, you know, the cathedral of the big mountains makes me happy and and sort of rejuvenates my soul.

[563] But there's something to be said for seeing what my body and my mind can do.

[564] You know, I think that a lot of people would agree that that's probably one of the main reasons why we get out and do these things.

[565] But, I mean, it's no joke.

[566] It's dangerous, man. I mean, you saw one of the most accomplished mountaineers, probably the best mountaineer in the world, just died, you know, under two months ago.

[567] Really?

[568] Ula Steck, yeah.

[569] How did he die?

[570] He fell.

[571] He was getting ready to go do, he's training up in the valley in that Western Coom from that camp two on Everest that you saw that image.

[572] He was going up the west shoulder of Everest with one other Sherpa, who's a friend of his, not just a paid Sherpa.

[573] It was his climbing partner.

[574] And they were going to go up a route that has yet to be successfully seconded.

[575] So these Americans...

[576] Seconded.

[577] So it's been done once, and people have died.

[578] trying to do it again several parties and he was going to go do it these two americans willie unsold and tom hornbyn did it um and it hadn't been repeated because it's it's straight up commitment man balls like but his shirpa was sick his shirpa was sick so yuley uh was out training one you know one morning and i think it was around four five in the morning he was on noopsie right yeah so he was up in that sort of cirque and he was over on a mountain called nipsay which beside Everest and he fell, who knows why, maybe he slipped or he got hit or something.

[579] You have to see this guy.

[580] This guy, you can see the videos online.

[581] Uri -Stek is this guy, no ropes no nothing.

[582] He's got two ice axes, and he runs up the hill faster than you can run on pavement.

[583] For sure.

[584] Really?

[585] He's going to call him the Swiss machine.

[586] Unbelievable.

[587] Is a video of him doing this?

[588] Hundreds of them.

[589] Lots of it.

[590] How do you spell his name?

[591] U -L -I -S -E -T -Eck.

[592] Now, the incredible, when you see it, the incredible thing about it is you're at the six degree pitch ice walls he's at 26 27 you know 23 ,000 feet and he's just going bang bang bang bang bang bang bang yeah he's in like a video game he's a ridiculously committed he was an athlete I mean he was committed to his craft being as strong as he could be you know technically capable but you know it's it's it's still a roll of the dice and how many people have died trying to do this summit to do Everest the seconded one oh a good handful.

[593] I don't know exact numbers, but several, from different nationalities.

[594] So everybody is either failed or died except one person?

[595] Who's the one person?

[596] Two, two Americans.

[597] That was Willie Unsold, Tom Hornbine.

[598] And that's what they do.

[599] Once they summit, once the climbers are, and it's just, you know, humans in general, these climbers do it, then they want to find a more difficult route, or they do without oxygen.

[600] So Yule was going to go up and do that.

[601] Look at this fucking guy.

[602] He's going to go do that, and then come around, summit Everest, and then go check that out.

[603] Dude, he's like a fucking goat.

[604] Oh yeah, look at this, look at that That's incredible So his aerobic You know, he's got that ability To kick out the lactic acid Oh my God That is insane He's an absolute beast It's a shame It was a big loss Is it just because he's been doing it for so long What is that?

[605] I mean it's like any other crap Holy shit No ropes Oh my God Okay for people just listening What is the name of this video Jamie So Uly U -E -L -S -T -E -S -T -E -E -S -T -E -E -C CK, new speed record, Iger, 2015.

[606] So this is the north face of the Iger.

[607] And so he's a Swiss dude, and he grew up sort of cut his teeth in the Alps.

[608] Fuck all this.

[609] Now, I want to be clear, though.

[610] No ropes.

[611] This isn't like the first time he did this, right?

[612] It's probably the 50th time he climbed that route.

[613] He did it over and over and over, got it dialed, figured it out, and then went out and did these speed records and set these speed riders.

[614] Very similar to what just happened on El Capitan.

[615] Last week.

[616] Did you hear about Alex Arnold and what Alex did?

[617] Oh, yeah, I did.

[618] I watched the pictures and video of that.

[619] He's been on the podcast before.

[620] Alex has?

[621] Yeah, he's a freak.

[622] Yeah, so, I mean, what an odd dude he is.

[623] What he did, what he did in my mind.

[624] A great way.

[625] Was like landing on the moon, dude.

[626] Yeah.

[627] I mean, the ability to pocket fear and just focus on the three square feet in front of you.

[628] is unparalleled.

[629] I mean, I've climbed El Cap, and I just, I can't imagine being up on those slabs.

[630] And how long to take you when you climbed El Cap?

[631] Three days.

[632] Three days.

[633] So Kim, four hours.

[634] And he free soloed it.

[635] But the point was like, Yule, you know, people look at that and they're like, whoa, dude got super sweating.

[636] No, mine are too, by the way, you know, and I think about it.

[637] So you look at Yule and you see this video and you're like, wow, he's crazy, he's crazy.

[638] No, he's calculated.

[639] And so was Alex.

[640] Alex, super calculated.

[641] Like he'd climbed Freeriter, the route that he did a few weeks ago.

[642] He did it several dozen times and would fall on it and, you know, on with a rope.

[643] And he just was in the right headspace that day and went up and did it without a whole lot of pomp and circumstance, just went out and nailed it.

[644] Look at this.

[645] There's going to be a crazy -ass video that Jimmy Chin.

[646] Oh, Jimmy was shooting it?

[647] Yeah, Jimmy was near the top.

[648] No, did he shoot it like next to him with ropes?

[649] Is that what they do?

[650] No, so Jimmy was very respectful of not getting in his way.

[651] Because this is a very, obviously, very intense thing.

[652] Oh, yeah.

[653] Hey, man, how's it going?

[654] Yeah, right.

[655] He's going good?

[656] Hey, dude, look it down there.

[657] Fuck, what a crazy view?

[658] Yeah, I've missed a shot.

[659] Can you go back up?

[660] Hey, man, can you give me a thumbs up?

[661] Selfie.

[662] Look over and smile.

[663] But Jimmy's a very accomplished climber, and he's an amazing cinema.

[664] Yeah, there is.

[665] Jimmy Chin, National Geographic.

[666] Shout out to Jimmy Chin.

[667] He was at the top, and him and his team, I think, lowered down.

[668] and yeah greatest greatest athletic human feat I ain't gonna lie I have to agree because it's if you think about true athletic feats it's not just obviously the you know the corporal sort of you know event it's just the whole mixed bag of who you are as an athlete mentally emotionally behaviorally physically how you execute in the moment when shit is just on point like right in your face and he did it like to this level that I can't even it's unbelievable man ripping out of my hands I mean crazy right I mean once you get 30 feet off the deck it's game on you right you know and then now put you know a power of 100 on that you know but there's very few sports where one mess up you're dead that's right does he have any like guys that are trying to be the next Alex Honnold that are chasing him well I just read something today this morning about that there could be some emulators you know they're like who knows there's other super tough badass climbers that are out there that are also free saw on and doing shit without ropes but um he's at another level and everyone knows that you know there's how is he at this other level well first of all like what is what separates him yeah well there's a lot of body chemistry that that is sort of a mystery like how does his pituitary how does his adrenal gland not just flame out right how does he control that in a way that I can't right I mean my yeah we're sitting here at the desk and my hands are sweaty just thinking about right so there he is as calm and collected as he can be they've done studies on on Alex they brought him in and like you know buzzed his brains like where are you you know chemically biochemically when we introduce assaulting sort of variables on you.

[669] And he's just flatline.

[670] So he's the perfect blend of biochemistry and physical capacity, but also devotion and commitment to his craft.

[671] I mean, he's an artist, right?

[672] That's the way.

[673] He got down from that climb that day, just a couple weeks ago.

[674] And they were like, what are you going to go do now?

[675] You know, he's at Disneyland.

[676] He was going on his fingerboard, and he was going to go train and do, like, you know, fingerboard workout that afternoon.

[677] Because climbing L. KAP for four hours was not enough workout for the day.

[678] It was like whatever, he says.

[679] Put him in an MRI and showed him images, and that's what was his responses.

[680] Yeah, his brain's fear levels.

[681] After looking at gruesome and arousing images, he commented it was like whatever.

[682] That is that dude.

[683] He's so mellow.

[684] But that's how he described it.

[685] When I said to him, I said, like, what is it like?

[686] Are you freaking out?

[687] You're trying to keep calm.

[688] He's like, you're really mellow.

[689] He goes, if anything is like, if you, if there's anything wrong, it's so wrong.

[690] Like, when it goes wrong.

[691] Cascades.

[692] Yeah.

[693] Like, you're fucked.

[694] Like, so you're always, he's, his way of putting it was mellow.

[695] Yeah.

[696] I think there's a video, I believe, and maybe Alex and maybe some another climber, but I think there's a video of him, probably El Cap, when he was three soloing before this one, where he says, give me a minute.

[697] It was Northwest direct face of a half dome, and I've climbed that route, too, and I'll tell you.

[698] I've the only time I've ever seen him flap.

[699] That was the iconic image on Nat Geo, on National Geographic magazine, of him standing just in his plaid short shirt, like on the ledge, you know, leaning back.

[700] And it was, he reflected on that.

[701] They asked him about it later, and they said, you know, what was going on?

[702] He just, I just needed a minute.

[703] And he got it.

[704] And he calmed himself down, whatever was happening in his head, who knows?

[705] And he recalibrated and went up, you know, no gear.

[706] So it's just, who knows?

[707] That's him right there.

[708] That's when he needed a minute?

[709] No, no. No, there's another one of Jamie.

[710] He's in that green.

[711] There he is.

[712] Over there on the right.

[713] Yeah, that one.

[714] The green?

[715] Right above it, right there?

[716] It's the one where you stand in there, sort of on the left.

[717] Yeah.

[718] That's the one that I think was the Nat Geo.

[719] Yeah, and that's the one he says, I just need a minute.

[720] Just need a minute.

[721] That's a thousand feet off the deck.

[722] Yeah, right there at that stuff.

[723] But, you know, I mean.

[724] Imagine if that's your kid.

[725] We all.

[726] You know, and you're like, what are you doing?

[727] day, honey?

[728] So he apparently, he has a very, very close relationship with his mama.

[729] He grew up in Sacramento I guess, and I'm guess his mom.

[730] He just tells his mama what she needs to know.

[731] Yeah, he doesn't tell her until after it's over.

[732] Yeah.

[733] Fucking Christ.

[734] It's just like, that is a, that's a crazy thing to be awesome at.

[735] You know, all right.

[736] All right, hold on.

[737] So we're talking a lot about climbing, but the other reason I want to bring Jeff here.

[738] But hold on, we're not changing subjects.

[739] I don't know where the fuck you think you're going.

[740] this guy like so you said that there are a few people that are trying to emulate what he's doing well i think there's just a few guys doing their own thing and it happens to be free soloing and you know he's he's the pioneer right there were other guys before him there's a guy named peter crawf it was out there for many years sort of you know he did a he did a route called astro man in the valley that was at the time and i remember you know i was in my i think my early 20s when when Peter did that and I remember reading about it and thinking no like what how how does one want to do and I was just really getting into climbing a lot I just could it didn't compute but Peter Croft I think and guys like him and like Alex just have a wiring that's very very different than the rest of us and it seems reckless to many many people but what I do seems reckless to many people so it's so relative and there's a scale you know and and people that would look at Alex and be like you're crazy man that shit you're going to get to and like he's like whatever man I'm sure yeah there is a scale there's like yeah well you what about physically like is there like an optimum build you like for basketball you really want to be tall and thin right yeah is there is there an optimum build for what he does I mean I think you know sinewy and and the strength to weight ratio is is obviously you know the best climbers are usually thin and you know carry themselves well yeah and you know it's he's got big hands like not necessarily big like basketball player but like his fingers are sausages he's these fat fingers from constantly training him and almost callous yeah well just the amount of weight that he can carry on his hands has got to be pretty unusual yeah so this finger thing that he does like what is the well the campus board or a finger you know or one of those peg boards like from wrestling that's kind of like a campus board is like an inverted sort of board that you climb up just for strength and it works your core and your arms and your chest and your delts and stuff but then then the finger board allows you to get you know mono doit double doid you know two finger strength so he can then slot and then pull on one of those so it strengthens all your tendons in your in your hands and your fingers particularly um just little holes carved out of a sometimes it's a it's a oh that's right there yeah so sometimes it's a yeah so sometimes it's It's wood.

[741] Sometimes it's a composite.

[742] It's almost like a little cubby shelf.

[743] And so you stick your hands in there.

[744] Yeah.

[745] And then there's routines.

[746] I use one at home.

[747] And there's two finger pockets and three finger pockets.

[748] Oh, wow.

[749] You use one too, huh?

[750] I do.

[751] Yeah.

[752] I use one too.

[753] And then I'll try and hang, you know, and then count the 30 hang.

[754] And then go two finger and hang.

[755] And he did this after he summited?

[756] Yeah.

[757] So he went down and got interviewed and he goes, sorry, man, I got to go do a workout now.

[758] How's he not tired?

[759] Yeah.

[760] Well, that's why he's the best, right?

[761] It's where he is.

[762] Wow.

[763] So did this exist 20 years ago?

[764] Was there a lot of people free soloing 20 years ago?

[765] Well, no. It's like, that's the Peter Croft of those guys.

[766] There was a few.

[767] And back in the old camp four Yosemite days, like in Yosemite Valley, I mean, this was the place.

[768] This was the birth of it.

[769] And then there was some dudes that were not far from here in Joshua Tree that were doing some pretty balls out solo.

[770] In Joshua Tree?

[771] Yeah.

[772] in J. Tree.

[773] And I lived in Joshua Tree for a while.

[774] Just living in my van down by the river there and climbing all the time and eating rum and noodles and growing my head a little bit.

[775] You know what I'm saying?

[776] In the tree, man. And because, you know, there's a lot of climbing there that's pretty, there's high ball stuff.

[777] I bet if you could look at like the amount of mushrooms that are done, like in a specific location and then look at Joshua Tree, like the high concentration.

[778] I know so many people go to Joshua Tree just to shroom out yeah yeah I mean it's I'd like to look at that map there'd be a big target yeah yeah probably a big cluster right yeah I mean I've I've I've seen some good stuff there man I mean that was when I was sort of really really diving in I was diving into climbing those things those two things were conjoined was psychotropics and in a way and climbing yeah they are the lot of folks well it's that extreme connection to nature right And to life.

[779] And like you were talking about a little bit ago before we came on air was, you know, when you're stoned, you see the ball track better when you're playing pool.

[780] Oh, yeah.

[781] Well, you feel like the revolutions of the ball.

[782] Like you feel like how well you could touch the ball and get it to move, like your cue ball could, for me at least.

[783] Yeah.

[784] You know, I play like 10 % better when I'm high.

[785] Yeah.

[786] For whatever reason.

[787] Just feel more in touch with things.

[788] Yeah.

[789] That's why I like the social sliver.

[790] Social sliver?

[791] Oh, yeah.

[792] What's that mean?

[793] Sliver.

[794] Microdose.

[795] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[796] So just the microdose of whatever.

[797] Mushrooms are acid.

[798] Mushrooms, but I'm, so the new medium for us, I don't know if, if you've heard of it is goo.

[799] Do you know the goo?

[800] Gu.

[801] No. So it's super concentrated psilocybin.

[802] So they take mushrooms and they distill it down, concentrate it up, get this liquid, turn it into a tootsie roll appearing consistency.

[803] color.

[804] Give it on Halloween.

[805] You get a stick.

[806] Yeah.

[807] And you get a stick.

[808] And it's literally the size of a Tutsi roll.

[809] And we just take like a little, just a little nip.

[810] And that's the social sliver.

[811] Oh, and then it makes you just a little more tuned in.

[812] I mean, a lot more tuned in.

[813] I have a buddy who's a high level kickboxer, world champion kickboxer, started microdosing a few months back.

[814] Does it every day.

[815] Every day?

[816] Every day microdoses.

[817] And he competes on it.

[818] It fucks people up.

[819] Well, he's microdosing.

[820] So with what?

[821] With L or with?

[822] mushrooms so the I think and you might know what the fuckers locked in the zone more than me but if you if you take it serially it starts you lose it gets diluted over time yeah but when he takes when he stops taking it he feels that he misses it does yeah every day like a vitamin yep I think that's called addiction maybe I don't think so because it's not addicted it no it's like you get addicted to washing your hands if you're one crazy OCD guy I got wash my hands one more time like you really you can get a mental pathway that's very destructive you know and you can call it addictive but it doesn't demonize washing your hands you know i think his issue is uh um when he doesn't take it he says it just things aren't as fun doesn't feel as good but i've been around him when he's taking it and he's a hundred percent there yeah like it's not he's not he's like wow man i can like see your eyes and i'm thinking your eyes are looking at me and what are you're seeing i assume they're seeing what i'm no he's there he's there like you're there you know bud bud needs a little experience in his life don't you agree i've i'm really quiet over here because i've No idea what the fucking you guys are talking about.

[823] I threatened him with a social sliver before just to see what happens.

[824] It could go either way with him.

[825] Who should have hotbox him right now?

[826] Let's fuck him up.

[827] No. No?

[828] He's scared.

[829] He's got to do P tests.

[830] Do you, pee test?

[831] He owns his own company.

[832] I know.

[833] That's the funny thing.

[834] He tested himself.

[835] Joe's been trying to get me high.

[836] He just likes to pisses in his eyes.

[837] Joe's been trying to be high for about 18 years.

[838] Yeah, I have.

[839] It's not exaggerating.

[840] No, so I'm the microdosing, the goo, man. It is just.

[841] Well, let's talk later about that.

[842] I know.

[843] well, I've, there's people, there's conversations that need to have.

[844] Yeah, absolutely.

[845] So are a lot of these climbers doing that?

[846] I don't, I don't think so.

[847] I think, you know, I think that, you know, there's, there's probably a handful of us that like to mess around with those things all together.

[848] And not to say that I don't like to, you know, trip my balls off and go get on a rock.

[849] Of course.

[850] Right.

[851] Matter of fact, I've had a few sort of spooky times just being really stoned and being on a rock and not liking.

[852] the situation i was in yeah yeah i've been that way just normal life while you get too stoned especially like edibles chibichu fuck me up oh they'll fuck you up oh they'll fuck you i had a bit off my last special that's based on the truth i ate a fucking gummy bear a pot gummy bear and uh this the guy told me to just eat the leg it really is a true thing i'm like why the fuck are you making a whole bear then if you want some to eat a leg yeah it's this tiny little thing and i ate the whole bear and oh my god for the for a while too it's a long time till it's metabolized right it takes hours hours you wanted it to be over but you feel so good when it's over you feel like i needed that i needed all that pain and fear and just i got through it and it's like a near -death experience you know like something something about it like it's cleansing i guess you're eating a gummy bear should have that kind of a i shouldn't but it does and when it comes through on the other side like it's beneficial as long as you could keep it together you know as a person who's that's why it bums me out that you don't smoke pot or do anything because I know you could keep it together because you're a tough guy you keep life together like you would just it would just make you like more aware of shit but here's my here's my 19 years ago we started this conversation but here's my take on it bud is uh on the deathbed i'm going to get him high smoke it bud likes to be in control yeah that's the problem and he's afraid that he might not be you ever look at bud's closet i did does it shock you when everything's black it's a little confusing so i had a 10 minute conversation with this dude last night, like, dude, that kind of fuck me up looking at your closet.

[853] Stay the fuck out of my closet, man. He's like, I don't like other colors.

[854] Everything's black.

[855] It was 20 linear feet of one shade variation of the other black shirt, of the other black shirt of the other black shirt.

[856] He's a fucking ninja.

[857] All work, and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

[858] All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

[859] Oh.

[860] Yeah.

[861] No, no, it's just, it's efficient decision making, right?

[862] I don't have to make that decision.

[863] I had too many other shit to go in life, so I'm going to wear that.

[864] I can feel that.

[865] I can feel that.

[866] I get it.

[867] I understand it.

[868] Guys, everybody develops a uniform in life, right?

[869] It doesn't matter if it's khaki shorts and a blue.

[870] Everybody, that's your uniform.

[871] Right.

[872] That's true.

[873] You develop it.

[874] You know, what's interesting, though, if it was orange, it would be a big issue.

[875] If you were walking around with orange sneakers and orange pants and orange shirt, like this wacky motherfucker.

[876] But somehow or another, because it's black, you're like, oh, it's bud.

[877] A friend of mine, Tom DuPont, he owns DuPont Registry magazine, green pants.

[878] Like, shitty -looking green pants.

[879] All the time.

[880] Like, what's with a shitty green?

[881] He was like, I'm rich, bitch.

[882] I wear whatever the fuck I want.

[883] I'm in DuPont.

[884] We invented chemicals.

[885] Fuck off.

[886] Bitch, I got so much money.

[887] I like wearing green.

[888] His reality is probably so confusing.

[889] He's like, everybody remembers me my green pants.

[890] Yeah, I was in Lanai recently, and Larry Ellison owns the whole...

[891] The whole island.

[892] He owns the whole island.

[893] Yeah, he bought it and rebuilt it.

[894] Yeah.

[895] Well, it was Dole Pineapple owned it?

[896] First of all, Dole Pineapple bought it off.

[897] of I was there, I read the history of the island's amazing.

[898] A Mormon owned it, some crazy, but they don't even think he was really a Mormon.

[899] They think it was just a con man who used being a Mormon to lock people up and fuck their wives.

[900] There's probably a lot of stories of just like that.

[901] Oh yeah, oh yeah, there's quite a few, especially with Mormons.

[902] That's right.

[903] Very, very interesting religion, right?

[904] When you know the guy who made the religion, like there's two religions like that are pretty prominent, El Ron Hubbard, of course, and then Joseph Smith, the Mormons, you know.

[905] know the guy.

[906] He's kind of a con man. He's a fucking con. He invented it when he was 14.

[907] He found golden tablets that contained the lost work of Jesus, and only he could read them because he had a magic sear stone.

[908] He had a stone that he could look through to read these fucking Christ.

[909] He broke out of jail.

[910] He jumped out of the window.

[911] He was murdered.

[912] Yeah, he got murdered in jail.

[913] Yeah.

[914] He got killed in jail.

[915] I think the funny thing is I think it didn't, if it was him or somebody else who invented the polygamy part, they're like, wait a minute, I got another tablet.

[916] I can fuck all the bitches I want.

[917] Hold on.

[918] Yep.

[919] I can have as many wives I want.

[920] Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, good luck with all that.

[921] That never works.

[922] But the, um, why would you want more than one?

[923] I know, I can't handle one, man. Some people just like danger, like Alex Honnold likes to solo climb.

[924] Yeah.

[925] You know, I mean, it's just people like it.

[926] They're like 19 chicks yelling at them.

[927] I don't know, whatever.

[928] Sounds like it.

[929] I'm not here to judge.

[930] I think it should be legal.

[931] I think if those 19 women are into it and you're into it, why is it even legal to get married at all?

[932] Why is it like, when you see 50 % divorce and people get their, their lives devastated.

[933] When does a government step in?

[934] He go, hey, you got to stop doing this.

[935] This is just ruining all these people.

[936] All these kids.

[937] It ruinsens more people than anything.

[938] Just stop getting married.

[939] Keeps the lawyers afloat.

[940] It does.

[941] That should stop the fucking lawyer.

[942] It's a big business in weddings and lawyers.

[943] We can't stop that.

[944] We won't make any money.

[945] Jesus Christ.

[946] Yeah.

[947] Fuck all that.

[948] But so this guy, who's this crazy Mormon guy, sold it to the Dole company who used to run pineapples there.

[949] They used to have just massive pineapple plantation, and that was what it was forever.

[950] And then some other dude Murdoch, but not Rupert Murdoch.

[951] And Murdoch, he owns half of Westlake.

[952] Yeah, almost all of it.

[953] That dude bought it, and then he sold it to Larry Ellison, who just runs around gold underwear and fucking has people carry him like he's an emperor.

[954] Colonel Kurtz.

[955] I'm just making that up.

[956] Colonel Kurtz, Hon. Yeah, I don't even know where he keeps a place out there, I guess.

[957] But he just wanted to own it.

[958] It's a fucking baller place to live, though.

[959] So there's not How many people live there?

[960] 3 ,000 That's it There's 15 ,000 access deer though Oh Yeah So am I right in remembering That the concentration of people It's not necessarily on the coastline No, it's in the middle Yes, it's in the middle Smart people don't live on the coast Yeah, they're smart They're like This island's not that big And sometimes shit goes bad Yeah Let's not be where the water is We can go to the fucking water It's right there It's the asshole Americans I'm like oh I want to live there Anywhere you are, you can take a hike to the water.

[961] You know, it'll take a few hours if you're in the middle, but you can get there.

[962] Like, you don't have to live there.

[963] Jesus Christ.

[964] So tell me about the Axis deer.

[965] I want to hear, like, they're everywhere.

[966] I mean, was it not even sporting?

[967] Oh, it was definitely sporting.

[968] Because these animals, they evolved to run from tigers.

[969] They are the fastest fucking animals I have ever seen in my life.

[970] Like, in terms of, like, their ability to react.

[971] Like, there would be a deer 60 yards away.

[972] You draw back on it, launch the arrow, and it would be nowhere.

[973] near that arrow by the time the arrow got to it.

[974] So you lost a few sharp sticks or you're there?

[975] Oh yeah.

[976] Well you'd go five lighted knocks I can see them in the grass but I lost two but the arrows are going 275 feet a second and the deer's like bitch no chance like they're not indigenous to the island no there's no indigenous mammoths on that island everything is invasive and everything has no predators so they bring in these rangers and seals these snobes They bring them in, they set up on a bench, and they just start, but bang, but bang!

[977] They start taking them out.

[978] A 50 cow?

[979] Yeah, well, no, they don't have to use a 50 cow.

[980] They'd probably use like, I don't know, 70 millimeter or something.

[981] Well, why do that when you want the meat?

[982] The meat is outstanding.

[983] It is some of the most delicious meat in the world.

[984] But these animals are so on point.

[985] So for bow hunters, it is like one of the best places for spot and stock.

[986] Like, if you could put the smackdown on an Axis deer, like you either got lucky, which is me, or you got some skill.

[987] You know, like, I've got a little bit of skill, but the guys that I went with that are really good, like Remy Warren, I think he shot three or four while I was there.

[988] My friend John Dudley shot four world -class bow hunters, like as good as it gets.

[989] Those guys killed quite a few.

[990] But it is, you got, it's a great learning ground, like for stalking.

[991] Because you blow so many stalks.

[992] Screwing up.

[993] How long were you there?

[994] I only hunted for three days because I had a problem with my bow that I had to fix.

[995] once I got there and took a day to do that.

[996] But once you get there and you see how many deer, you realize like, oh, okay, this is like, this place is overpopulated.

[997] So, but in those three days, I saw thousands of deer.

[998] You saw a shit -time deer.

[999] Thousands, yeah.

[1000] I mean, thousands.

[1001] And you took a few shots.

[1002] Yes.

[1003] I took a few shots.

[1004] Yeah.

[1005] They're tough animals, too.

[1006] So are you moving?

[1007] Are you literally, are you moving and stalking and pausing and holding?

[1008] Yeah, you're doing what you call still hunting.

[1009] Yeah, still hunting.

[1010] Yeah.

[1011] You're walking and then you're looking for an animal that you're, you're, You're constantly using your wind checker, which is like a vizine bottle with the talcum power in.

[1012] Do you bow on it all?

[1013] Yeah, well, I've just recently started, yeah.

[1014] So you puff that in the air and you find out which way the wind is going.

[1015] My guide, though, he knew where the wind was going.

[1016] He just knew from his face and his neck and his skin.

[1017] Like, he can tell, like, where's the wind blowing?

[1018] And he's like, like this.

[1019] And you just puffed that smoke in the air, and sure enough, it was going exactly where it was.

[1020] Shout out to Roman.

[1021] But his ability to sneak up on these ends.

[1022] It's pretty fucking impressive, too.

[1023] You know, you do a lot of crawling.

[1024] Like, a lot of the grasses, like, waist high.

[1025] So you're doing, like, crawling where you're moving, like, literally, like, a snail's pace.

[1026] Try not to make too much noise.

[1027] Because you know they're over there, right?

[1028] You sighted them already when you've glassed them, and you know they're there.

[1029] And you're on an island, so they can't really go that far.

[1030] There's plenty of room for them to go.

[1031] There's, I mean, this is not like you're hunting them in a 100 -acre, confined, high -fence place.

[1032] It's all wild and free range, and it's, there's mountain terrain.

[1033] And there's plenty of places for them to get away from.

[1034] But they're aware of one predator, humans.

[1035] You know, so they're not scared of anything other than people.

[1036] So when they see a person like, fuck this.

[1037] But are there a lot of bow hunters that go over there?

[1038] There's plenty of bow hunters that go over there.

[1039] Yeah.

[1040] It's a pretty amazing place, man. But Maui's another really great place for bow hunting too, apparently.

[1041] And Maui also has pigs.

[1042] Maui has Axis deer.

[1043] They have a ram called a mouflon.

[1044] That apparently is unbelievably delicious.

[1045] but the locals think it tastes like shit.

[1046] Some locals said it tastes like shit, and some locals said it's the most delicious meat ever.

[1047] But the bow hunters that I was there with, there's a mouflon.

[1048] The bohuners I was there with, see if it's sunny on Remy Warren's page.

[1049] Remi Warren's Instagram, I think, has...

[1050] Because he shot one.

[1051] He shot a beautiful one.

[1052] You like that axe.

[1053] It's better than venison.

[1054] It's not better than elk.

[1055] It is delicious.

[1056] I mean, it is delicious.

[1057] I wouldn't say it's better than elk.

[1058] Elk is my favorite meat.

[1059] But it's right there.

[1060] It's right there.

[1061] It's really good.

[1062] Yeah.

[1063] Yeah.

[1064] Because, you know, like, analog, I'm not trying to relate those, but analog's just super sagey.

[1065] This is the one that he shot in Lanai.

[1066] So it's a really small animal, right?

[1067] Mm -hmm.

[1068] And they are, you know, they're on this really rugged mountain terrain.

[1069] Linai is so fascinating.

[1070] It's such a fascinating place.

[1071] And the people that live there could not be nicer.

[1072] Could not be cooler.

[1073] It's beautiful, gorgeous, paradise.

[1074] Yeah.

[1075] But, yeah, it's weird because they've decided to introduce these animals.

[1076] I think they did it way, way about hundreds of years ago.

[1077] And they have to keep those populations in check.

[1078] And sometimes, again, they bring in snipers.

[1079] And they put a bench down, and they just set up shop and get those long -range skills going.

[1080] So I was on Maui probably about, I guess, a month ago now.

[1081] And I went over to my buddy's house, and he has a pretty sweet spread.

[1082] It's at the top of this canyon and looking down up on the hill going towards Haleakula.

[1083] And he's like, man, you can come.

[1084] on my property anytime and shoot these fucking deer.

[1085] Wow.

[1086] Because they come, because he's like, they're a pain in the ass.

[1087] Yeah.

[1088] They're everywhere.

[1089] Yeah.

[1090] We need to get rid of them.

[1091] They come in and eat my oranges and this and that.

[1092] So, but what's the tag situation like?

[1093] Do you have to, I mean, is it private land?

[1094] You get a license.

[1095] There's public land.

[1096] You get a, we hunted public land and we hunted private land.

[1097] But you get a license.

[1098] Yeah.

[1099] And then you shoot as many as you want.

[1100] No limit.

[1101] No limit.

[1102] They want to, they mean, they have a problem.

[1103] Yeah.

[1104] I mean, it's not a problem.

[1105] It's not like they're not sick.

[1106] There's plenty of food for these deer.

[1107] Yeah.

[1108] So they're not getting chronic wasting.

[1109] No, no, no. It's beautiful, lush and green.

[1110] Yeah.

[1111] But they're just everywhere.

[1112] They're everywhere.

[1113] But they're not easy.

[1114] You know, if you had a rifle, it's pretty easy.

[1115] But you'll just have to pay and pack and get them back to the States as you go over there.

[1116] You want to shoot ten of them as long as you get them out of here.

[1117] But it's fantastic meat, pure, organic, couldn't be healthier.

[1118] They even serve it at the restaurant at the four seasons in Lanai.

[1119] You know, it's just, God damn, it's good.

[1120] So good.

[1121] lean and good oh so delicious just you feel the nutrition in it it's just so fantastic you know and when it comes to like sustainability and ethics it's like one of the best places like that's a place where you actually should be hunting these animals you know whenever i go to hawai i always just feel like i should show my passport like it's it's not america it ain't american they stole that that shit that shit is straight up like it's a foreign country it is in a beautiful way yeah in a beautiful way it's its own thing yeah i mean i like the fact that you can go there without a passport but i agree.

[1122] But I'm one of those weirdos to think there shouldn't be passports.

[1123] You should be able to go anywhere.

[1124] It's part of our problem.

[1125] It's that everybody's all locked into these land masses and these forbidden areas.

[1126] Yeah.

[1127] Break those boundaries.

[1128] Tear down that wall.

[1129] I was just in Iraq and you're talking about some boundaries and sort of lines in the sand and so forth.

[1130] Boy, you know.

[1131] Oh, I'm sure.

[1132] What were you doing over there?

[1133] So I went with, so back up, two years ago, the earthquake in Nepal.

[1134] that killed nine, almost 10 ,000 people throughout the country.

[1135] 19 on the mountain on Everest, right?

[1136] Yeah, a lot of people got dead.

[1137] 19 people died, and that one, was it an avalanche that got them?

[1138] Yeah, well, so the earthquake triggered a lot of glaciers that are hanging up around in that cirque, and it released, and a lot of stuff just blew through base camp and killed folks.

[1139] But throughout Nepal, throughout the countryside, I mean, we're talking villages that have stone huts and no mortar and no rebar and, you know, just shakes just a little bit and she falls down.

[1140] Ancient temples.

[1141] I mean, the place was destined.

[1142] It's a house or temples.

[1143] Yeah.

[1144] So lots of devastation, lots of people dead and lots of injuries.

[1145] So that day that happened, I knew I wanted to go to Nepal to help.

[1146] I'm a PA.

[1147] I'm a physician assistant and I've specialized in emergency medicine.

[1148] So I knew I wanted to be there.

[1149] And more than anything, like, focused on sort of austere medicine, you know, like I want to go out there.

[1150] where shit's a little bit off and try and help the best I can.

[1151] So I went over there.

[1152] I located an NGO called NYC Medics.

[1153] And I, what's NGO?

[1154] And a non -governmental organization.

[1155] So not supplied or, you know, subsidized by the feds.

[1156] This is just like sponsorship, basically donation money, gets you over there and you do your work.

[1157] So you're not under the auspices of the feds.

[1158] So went over there with these guys.

[1159] NYC medics, which is a group of former, you know, New York City paramedics that realized they wanted to take their skills and go do some cool shit around the world.

[1160] So I found these guys.

[1161] I went over with them.

[1162] I was on the ground for a month way, way back, like in the way back.

[1163] This place called Dadding Bessi, which is right at the base of the Ganesha Mall.

[1164] So this is a place that we landed in some helicopters and set up shop, and there was a lot of these Nepali's that they're Tamong Nepali they're that's their ethnic tribe not Sherpa but Tamong they see the helicopter come in and these white dudes get out of the helicopter and they're like what the fuck we need help are you here to help yes we're here to help so we had three helicopters worth of gear downloaded it set up our clinic and we're there for a month we saw I don't know seven or 800 patients in the course of a month and it what started as trauma from the earthquake sort of then segue to into primary care.

[1165] Infections and injuries.

[1166] Well, and also, believe it or not, like a lot of, of, you know, psychological pain.

[1167] Like, they were scared.

[1168] The earth was shaken still.

[1169] I mean, there was tremor after tremor after tremor.

[1170] I mean, every day the earth would shake.

[1171] I got home, and for a month after I got back from there, I still felt the ground shaking in Boulder, Colorado.

[1172] Because it was just, my body was still sort of the equilibrium was weird.

[1173] So tremors every single day.

[1174] So these people needed, you know, anxiety medicines, you know, to be able to take the edge off.

[1175] So I was over there for a month.

[1176] We saw a bunch of people, and it was very worthwhile.

[1177] So got connected to this organization and became good friends with all the folks who run it.

[1178] They do amazing work.

[1179] And so I got a call in January from one of the heads of the organization that says, we got this kind of kooky thing that we've been asked to do by the World Health Organization.

[1180] Would you be interested?

[1181] Kooky?

[1182] Cookey.

[1183] Is that the word?

[1184] That's the word he used.

[1185] Cookey.

[1186] Jesus.

[1187] Who the fuck uses Cookey?

[1188] So it, well, I mean.

[1189] When it comes to going to Iraq.

[1190] 12 years in medical school.

[1191] Not understanding what sniper fire is.

[1192] It was a little bit of cookie.

[1193] So he frames it up for me and he's like, listen, here's what's going on.

[1194] We've been asked by the World Health Organization to go in and be a trauma stabilization point in Mosul, which means you will be as close to the front line as, possible embedded with the Iraqi special operations forces.

[1195] And your job will be to lead a medical team of, we had nine of us, within 2 ,000 meters of the front line.

[1196] That was the way it was framed up.

[1197] And that's what we all sort of signed up for.

[1198] And that was the agreement with the World Health Organization.

[1199] So we would be the first point of contact as these Iraqi special operations guys were going in and putting the fight to ISIS to liberate Western Mosul.

[1200] So, you know, Eastern Mosul had been liberated, you know, months before.

[1201] He volunteered for this, by the way.

[1202] So that's all Eastern Mosul on the east side of the Tigers.

[1203] And then on the west side, you know, ISIS was still sort of dug in right there.

[1204] And they were, they're ready to put the fight down.

[1205] They wanted to get after it and save, you know, that's where their caliphates supposedly started or was settled.

[1206] And so our job is the TSP, this trauma stabilization point, was to be as close to the front lines we could be, and this was the kicker, you know, within a margin of safety, but still be close enough to where we could receive the casualties as quickly as possible, stabilize them and then get them to a forward operating suite, which was typically run by allied forces, so our guys.

[1207] so I said yes before I asked my wife which now in retrospect probably wasn't the best strategy because she was not super stoked but she you know I pitched it to her and I've got an 11 year old kid and she gave me I think the least amount of pushback as anybody around me in my close network i mean a lot of my boys were like the fuck dude what are you thinking man like what's what's your point what are you doing this for what's your intention to go over there to a war zone to a combat zone volunteering you know and and and and helping a group of people that you have no affinity for it made sense going to nepal because i love nepal i love i love everything about nepal i love the nepali people so that good everybody got that but that's the weird thing about Jeff, because he was on the phone with me at the same time saying, hey, are we going back to Everest to go rescue?

[1208] So he's going to, no matter what, sometime in spring, he's going to put his ass on the line to help save people.

[1209] He was calling me, and we're going back, and I'm like, I don't know if we're going back.

[1210] The network may order another season.

[1211] We'd probably go back, and I started lining stuff up, and just in case the network's creeped it?

[1212] And it has stuff aired yet?

[1213] Yeah, yeah, Everest Air.

[1214] The name of the show is Everest Air, November of last year.

[1215] Everest Air?

[1216] And what network did it air on?

[1217] Travel Channel.

[1218] Six episodes on Travel Channel.

[1219] It's on iTunes and a couple other places.

[1220] too okay so people could get it right yeah yeah so uh so you tell your wife yeah and she you know she knew what she signed up for when i you know when she married me so she knew she was kind of getting a little bit of a you know a little bit of a of a wild buck in her hands but um this was different you know i can go climbing i can set my sights on this and that and get out there in the mountains or do adventure races and stuff and all that's cool but then you know mad respect to the men women that serve in our military man and put it out there every day but i'd never been in a combat zone that shit is crazy man i mean it is it was real um and i have no uh you know predications that i had any experience close to what our men and women have experienced but from a medical perspective it was intense to say the least i mean it was a mind bender the first after after the first three days i remember texting my wife just saying like i don't know if this is sustainable like just this my emotional state because every day was immense volume of profound penetrating trauma.

[1221] I mean, never was there very, very rarely was there a guy who had one gunshot one.

[1222] Typically, you know, seven or eight or nine, they were leaking from their, you know, from lots of places.

[1223] You know, these dudes were getting shot up and then the IEDs and would blow these guys up and we would get them.

[1224] You know, they'd be, the young business was just scream in and drop these guys off.

[1225] And then five minutes later, another ambulance would come in with two other dudes, and it was just constant, constant.

[1226] And we would do the best we could to stabilize them or call it.

[1227] And the ones we could save, we'd package them up and stabilize them, try and control the bleeding.

[1228] We'd intubate them if we needed to and put chest tubes in and crack them in some cases and stabilize their extremities and patch their holes and then send them on.

[1229] he would do these weekly daily blogs right so people who know him were over there we're waiting watching CNN see if he's going to be on which he was and he do these daily blogs the long long diatribe which is i think how he stays somewhat sane but to get shot at there's mortars come in into their compound where are these blogs on my blog um which is yeah it's on my website jeff b evans there's i like to write jeff be evans dot com yep jeff be evans dot com so i like to write and bud you write and i like to write how do you have the time well so this is what I would do at night.

[1230] Like if I would lay down, we were sleeping on the floor on these, you know, these Iraqi blankets, you know, and we would just lay down on this.

[1231] So we'd go into these abandoned homes and we'd set up these trauma bays and we'd sleep in a room off the trauma bay.

[1232] And so, you know, we'd do our day.

[1233] I very rarely wasn't dressed and ready to get up and go.

[1234] Because at any time, the head logistician would be like, patience, you know, and everybody would pop up and, get ready, didn't go out, and the ambulance would throw people on, mostly during the day, but fighting would generally subside at night, and we'd get a little bit of rest, and then I'd write, and I'd write, and it was important, I think, to sort of, you know, percolate that shit out a little bit and let it sit.

[1235] So we were in this one place for a couple weeks, and then came the request from the head of ISAF, Special Operations General Abbas, and he came to our head logistical gal and he's like listen you know as the front line is moving forward we would like for you guys if you are up for it to move forward as well the only problem is um it's not going to be within that 10 that 2 2 500 meter cushion from the front line it's going to be more like 500 meters from the front line 500 meters yeah which you know.

[1236] That's really close.

[1237] That's really close, especially since the front line's pretty fluid anyway, right?

[1238] And this isn't conventional warfare, right?

[1239] These guys are, you know, their ISIS was reinforcing these vehicles and, you know, steel -plating them up and then taking civilians and handcuffing them to the, you know, to these steering wheels and telling them you best drive and they'd drive and then they'd be packed full of explosives and C -4 and they'd blow them up, you know.

[1240] And, you know, these, our guys, you know, Iraq, you dudes would be like trying to pelt him to take the dude out and I couldn't get you know like shit was was really archaic but effective you know and so so they told us you know we'd like for you to move and then our head logistical gal Kathy she's came to the whole team and she said this is our this is our option you don't have to do it you know no one's obligated to do it y 'all are volunteers and and and by the way we were close to begin with I mean it was it was constant every day just mortars and small arms fire and there was a bunch of um of of of uh of of artillery that was set up all around us outgoing so we got used to the sound of outgoing artillery um we didn't hear a lot of incoming um because they just had pushed them back so okay we all said let's do it you know if we can create positive impact and we can save more lives by being closer let's do it so we all gotten this big Oshkosh and Humvee convoy and drove down past the airport and I think a lot of military folks that listen will know that airport in West Mosul very well probably we drove right through the old busted up you know you know it was just rubble the whole airport's rubble it's just completely it looks like fucking you know bedrock Flintstones you know it's just a mess drove all the way through there and then went to this house and we set up our clinic on a street corner covered by a corrugated metal roof and put all our trauma we put six trauma beds and got our trauma sleeves up and everything was ready to go and then we we set up our residents across the street at some other abandoned house and we're down in this sort of concrete bunker so to speak and we started seeing patients and you know day one shit ton of people and lots of things happening i mean talking dozens and dozens of you know multiple gunshot wound patients multiple careers that i experienced in that month of just the flow of volume of penetrating chama so then then uh it was day two or three all these displaced locals um basically got released.

[1241] So they've been holding them at a checkpoint, fingerprinting the fighting age males, making sure they're not on a record, and making sure everybody's not strapped and letting them through.

[1242] So on day three or four, they just let this flow of humanity started walking down the street about 60, 70 yards from us, from where we were set up, and they'd see the Americans, and they'd see the stethoscopes, and they'd just start running towards us because these people had been captivated for, you know, held captive and hiding out in their basements, eating grass, you know, trying to find any fluids at all to drink.

[1243] There's no rain water, you know, there's a fucking rain there, and just, just eking by.

[1244] And little kids, I mean, these are civilians, these are little bitty kids, and they're hiding out in these homes, and they would just run.

[1245] They would just take off running and get to these checkpoints.

[1246] So on day three or something, this flow of humanity comes by.

[1247] These guys are starting to sort of bum rush our spot.

[1248] And everybody starts to get a little bit panic because we weren't quite sure what was, you know, it turns out a lot of bad things could happen, you know, in that situation.

[1249] So we sort of get our security detail to keep everybody away, and we treat a shit ton of people.

[1250] Day four rolls around.

[1251] And we wake up that morning, and the first patient I have is.

[1252] a five -year -old little girl that had been just absolutely like homicide like killed shot right in the head assassinated back of the head back of the head yeah and that was how our day started it like you know seven in the morning that was it and the day got worse so um the first incoming landed about um i'd say about 75 yards from us an RPG it landed in the neighbor in the neighbor's yard next to us and it just blew a bunch of debris up and it landed on our corrugated roof there and and we were all like damn but we kept working then 10 minutes later maybe another one came in and it was 50 yards and just getting closer this second it's called a grid it's a clit it's a little click 75 50 25 so we didn't know it at the time though but yeah you're right that we did not know this at the time so uh that one obviously got everybody super tingly um but there was still a shit ton of people coming in we had patience i mean we were working and we had our kevlar vests on and we were trying to you know then then the third one hit and it landed um right outside the door and it blew a shit ton of debris i mean we felt the blast and one of our medics got a big piece of debris in the back of his leg it knocked him down so we went into this bunker basically the staging bunker and we sat down in there and you know no matter what we couldn't we weren't going to go out into that but then 30 seconds later um one of our uh security detailed dudes carried in our head of security and he was lifeless and dropped him on the table this is a dude we'd been you know eating cookies with and drinking tea with like a half hour before, you know, an hour before, you know, standing at the door, uh, in between, you know, ambulances.

[1253] This is our, this is our guy, you know, and he was dead.

[1254] And so we, we all looked at each other and I was the team leading.

[1255] I tell you, man, I wasn't about to ask anybody to go out into that.

[1256] And no one even hesitated.

[1257] Like, we went out and started working on Haseeb and we, we, um, we got on him quick.

[1258] And he was out.

[1259] And I listened to his lungs.

[1260] He didn't have any lungs sounds on one.

[1261] inside.

[1262] I saw some penetrating entry wound in his chest.

[1263] Put a chest tube in his right thorax and about a liter of blood poured out from his plural space just like that.

[1264] And as soon as that happened, he could inspire again.

[1265] And so he started breathing and resuscitated him.

[1266] So he was dead and he came back to life just from that.

[1267] He was he was unable to inspire.

[1268] So, you know, his whole body had shut down from number one from the shock blast, right, and being hit that hard by a piece of shrapnel and just being that close to the impact.

[1269] But then also, you know, this penetrating piece of shrapnel went right through his chest and didn't hit any of his vital organs, just caused this hemothorax, this blood to fill up in his plural space.

[1270] So, you know, I evacuated all that blood and he started to be able to breathe again.

[1271] So there he is.

[1272] He's back.

[1273] We get him out.

[1274] We go back inside the bunker there and a couple hours later we got out.

[1275] So we find out the next day that a dude, not a fighting age, a local guy, was a sleeper cell and that he had come back in the neighborhood and was three or four houses down and was communicating with his operatives and his ISIS bros, you know, two, 300 meters away and was releasing.

[1276] pigeons to identify our position.

[1277] So the way they figured it's out, one of our security guys would see a pigeon go up, and he didn't think much about it, and then a mortar hit.

[1278] And then, you know, 10 minutes later, he's like, there's no pigeons around there, right?

[1279] Because, I mean, shit's crazy.

[1280] It's combat zone, birds don't dig combat zones.

[1281] So he kind of started to piece it together, and then he realized on the third one, he's like, he saw a pigeon go up, and he goes, we're about to get hit.

[1282] Sure enough.

[1283] so we got out of there saved Haseeb's life he got out and they went and found this dude and got his phone and sure enough he was doing all this and he admitted it he's like yep that was me I was doing it I was releasing pigeons to identify your spot and I was told they took care of the situation that was what I was to try to kill the Americans who were trying to help everybody well yeah so ISIS wanted us I mean they wanted to get us because we were there we were helping the enemy right Jesus so that was that was a couple months ago So they documented on his website.

[1284] CNN was interviewing him and there's mortars dropping.

[1285] It was crazy.

[1286] Yeah, it was heavy.

[1287] How long were you over there for?

[1288] About a month.

[1289] How did you decide when you're leaving?

[1290] Well, they knew this NYC medics, they knew this NGO knows like it was hard to sustain that, you know?

[1291] I mean, with the concentration, it can't help but affect you.

[1292] I mean, that's why so many of our military folks have such profound PTSD, right?

[1293] It's just from getting your ass kick like that.

[1294] I mean, these guys go through these deployments that are just months on end of that, right?

[1295] Right.

[1296] You just can't imagine how much, you know, how that hurts.

[1297] And then go back to Kansas and try to go to the grocery store.

[1298] Yeah, it's hard to fathom, you know.

[1299] Hence the black tar, titsy rolls.

[1300] Well, it's so social.

[1301] It's not black tar.

[1302] It's not a mushroom.

[1303] I don't know what the fuck it is.

[1304] I'm just, that's the other kids with that dope, these young kids.

[1305] Wow.

[1306] Yeah, so that was kind of, it took me a little bit to roll out of that.

[1307] And thank God for my wife, man. She came back and we went on a run up in the hills like a few days later.

[1308] And we got up to the top of this hill and I just cried on her shoulder.

[1309] I just let it go.

[1310] And since then, I'm fine.

[1311] But it gives me such a deep appreciation for how hard it must be for, you know, for these men and women who come back from these deployments.

[1312] And they've been a part of these things and been affected so profoundly.

[1313] it's got to hurt, you know, on a very deep emotional level.

[1314] Oh, God.

[1315] I can only imagine, man. What a crazy life you live.

[1316] Helping people that are involved in traumatic situations over and over again, various traumatic situations, whether it's getting stuck on K2 or whether it's getting...

[1317] Yeah.

[1318] But he seeks it out.

[1319] That's what he does.

[1320] I just wanted to bring in me, he sees like, what am I going to do this spring that's going to change 50 people's lives?

[1321] Where's K2?

[1322] K2's in Pakistan.

[1323] Pakistan.

[1324] Yeah.

[1325] That's a, is that a more dangerous one than Everest?

[1326] I think generally the consensus is it's more technical, it's more dangerous.

[1327] And it's not as commercialized, right?

[1328] So it's not all.

[1329] When they say more technical, what do they mean by that?

[1330] Well, there's just longer bits of terrain that require more high -level technical climbing skill.

[1331] So more exposed, steeper, you know, more, you know, longer stretches of hanging it out there kind of terrain.

[1332] You better have your shit dialed or you're going to get smoked.

[1333] And you, and when they go.

[1334] on these like crazy hikes like you have to have very specific kind of gear too right like they must have like the clothing pretty dialed in yeah i mean remember those pictures of mallory right yeah it's come like this dude was in wool which by the way wool is pretty good pretty good yeah it's a lot better than cotton a lot better than cotton um but now you know it's it's a matter of of getting the right gear that works um and you can rely on it you know it's i mean i don't want to be 20 miles I was back and, you know, in the backcountry, hunt milk, and have my thermarrest have a hole in it.

[1335] So I sleep in the dirt for five days, which is what happened to me last fall.

[1336] I was by myself and, you know, it was way, way back in the first night.

[1337] You know, my thermrest had a hole.

[1338] I didn't have a patch, I just laid in the dirt for five nights.

[1339] How was that?

[1340] Dick off.

[1341] Yeah, you get cold from it, too.

[1342] Fug your pad.

[1343] Put my, I have to put my pack under it.

[1344] You just, you know, whatever.

[1345] Yeah.

[1346] Fat some nights like that.

[1347] So, yeah.

[1348] Wait a minute, you were upset.

[1349] because you had a hole in your air mattress?

[1350] It was flat, man. I had nothing.

[1351] But you bagged on the Japanese guy because he had a hole in his mattress.

[1352] Well, which guy?

[1353] The guy that came down?

[1354] Yeah, well, he called a helicopter in.

[1355] I sucked it up.

[1356] He called the helicopter because he had a hole in his mattress?

[1357] This is a funny story.

[1358] So I got a call.

[1359] So there's a Japanese guy and he's dying at camp too.

[1360] Dying.

[1361] Dying?

[1362] Yeah.

[1363] He's telling everybody he's fucking dying.

[1364] He's dying.

[1365] So we're like, holy shit, all right.

[1366] I got to get the helicopter, get the helicopters.

[1367] They risk their lives.

[1368] They go up there.

[1369] they get him fly him down base camp base camp to Lucla where our air station was gets out of helicopter and I'll let Jeff take over well yeah and then you know I started you know asking him he's as pleasant as he can be and what's going on do you hurt you have pain you know he's so oh very very tired very very tired hole in mattress and I'm like you have a what he what and he said I have a hole in a mattress and he was at camp too and was sleeping in the snow and had a hole in his mattress and didn't tell anybody basically he was done like we were talking about earlier he was done and because he's got money he calls in the cavalry and says bring me a helicopter Jeff was pissed I was fucking pissed hissed there's a lot of people risked their lives I saw a dude on Denali do that in the base camp in 1996 or seven this dude shows up with a like a Boy Scout old school Boy Scout like Weebel looking fucking thing, you know, like made of cotton, I guess, you know, with like some weird synthetic shit.

[1370] And he asked me for a knife to be able to cut the plastic off of it, you know, and I'm like, man, that's not a good idea.

[1371] Where are you going?

[1372] And I didn't want to, you know, I should have questioned him.

[1373] Two weeks later, we get a call and have to go up to 17 ,000 feet for a guy who had broken his ankle.

[1374] So we land the helicopter down at 17, and he runs towards the helicopter, which everybody knows is you don't run towards a helicopter.

[1375] He runs to the helicopter.

[1376] I'm like, he's got a...

[1377] So it turns out he was just cold.

[1378] I'm telling you, man, like, a lot of people just tap out and because they know there's an infrastructure around that will pull them out.

[1379] Instead of being accountable for themselves, that's where I get pissed.

[1380] So we pulled this guy off and we interviewed him, and then Jeff goes, the nicest thing he says, have a nice life, walks up and just starts cussing and piss.

[1381] He didn't want to do an interview.

[1382] This is the Japanese guy?

[1383] Yeah, yeah.

[1384] Didn't want to talk about him and do anything.

[1385] I mean, it's very dangerous to fly a helicopter at that altitude, right?

[1386] Selfish.

[1387] Anything can go wrong.

[1388] I mean, our helicopter pilots were, I mean, absolutely the, other than military pilots, got to be the best helicopter pilots in the world.

[1389] I mean, these guys are so skilled and understand what those conditions make you do as a pilot.

[1390] It was phenomenal.

[1391] But, that being said, machines break.

[1392] I put him in a helicopter one time.

[1393] We put him in a bunch of helicopters one time, and that helicopter and that pilot a day.

[1394] now from that well no like a few months later i was in the bird with that guy from fine he crashed into a cliff yeah won't name the company but yeah we there was that one little flight we put him in there yeah and then that was a rack that was a rickety old helicopter when you do all these really high stressful high danger sort of situations you're constantly around people that have this extremely high threshold for the extremely high time tolerance, to discomfort, to, you know, pushing your endurance levels, overcoming obstacles.

[1395] Like, you're around people that are, like, really solid human beings.

[1396] Like, they're very, like, we're talking about people that are willing to summit Everest, people that will rescue people that summit Everest, people that are willing to do these medical stations 500 yards or 500 meters from the front line.

[1397] I mean, you're talking about some really solid human beings, very, very unusually solid human beings.

[1398] When you come back from that and deal with people like, oh, my fucking cell phone's such a piece of shit, you know, like, oh, my God, this traffic.

[1399] Oh, my God.

[1400] Like, is that one of the hardest transitions, like the modern first world problems gripes, the bullshit that people whine and bitch about?

[1401] Yeah, yeah.

[1402] That was part of the discomfort I had when I came back from.

[1403] my rack specifically was, you know, the delay in flights and just how piss businessman Bob gets, you know, like, come on, dude.

[1404] I let, like Louis C .K. you know, you're not fucking walking, you know?

[1405] Like 13 of you're dead when you get back, you know.

[1406] Like, no, I'm just, I've been on a gratitude tour since I got back.

[1407] Like, I'm just grateful for everything.

[1408] I'm so grateful that I was born by random stroke of luck, you know, in Roanoke, Virginia, with good parents and a good family structure and was given all the opportunities that I was given.

[1409] And I wasn't born in Mosul and hiding in a, you know, a cellar from the most evil dudes on the planet.

[1410] Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's great.

[1411] So I've come back and instead of getting mad at those people or frustrated with those people, I just try and smile through it and just think, you know, to myself, like, man, I wish you could taste what I tasted, just not not long ago you know like it really recalibrated me um where it just doesn't you know i just let it teflon off you know to a certain extent and with regards to the people that i work with i tend to i think gravitate towards people who um like these chaotic sort of environments um and i got turned on to this uh this thing that was this this concept of this acronym that the american Military Academy kicked off a few decades ago, 30 years ago or something, and they started referring to working in these VUCA environments, right?

[1412] Volatile, uncertain, chaotic, ambiguous environments and how we operate in those environments and how true champions and leaders like Alex can operate in these places, in these atmospheres that are just absolutely shithouse sideways.

[1413] And when things go crazy, how do you handle?

[1414] How do you manifest it?

[1415] you know what are you what are you doing are you flipping the fuck out are you withdrawing you know and and we all have different methods for dealing but I feel like I've kind of gravitated towards those kind of people yeah I just got done reading Sebastian Younger's book Tribe I just read it too when I got back amazing it's amazing yeah it reminds you of of where we are and where we've been yeah and also why people do gravitate towards those environments and like what it what they get out of it and how this uh life in these intense environments sort of uh it magnifies so much of what it means to be human and and to be a part of something that's bigger than you yes that's the phenomenal thing and i read i read uh youngers i read that book too right when i got back so just like last month i read it and it was a great tool for me my um my seal team buddy told me to read it when I got back and he says all the team guys you know have read it because of that it reminds them of why yeah why and then why things are a little bit you know the threads come undone a little bit when you're not in that tribe right yeah yeah and how many people live in environments where they don't know their neighbors there there's no danger there's no excitement there's no nothing and they live this muted terrible terrifying life.

[1416] In a lot of ways, it's terrifying because there's nothing there.

[1417] It's empty.

[1418] There's a void.

[1419] And it's not how human beings are supposed to be.

[1420] We're supposed to be confronted by a certain amount of difficulty.

[1421] It's supposed to be challenged, right?

[1422] And life's very insulated and soft.

[1423] And as a result, we insulate further, I think, from that.

[1424] And then we medicate to deal with the hollow feeling that you get from being isolated and insulated.

[1425] But I answer to the quest is for earlier, which is why people climb Everest, why you climb K2, why you go, let's push yourself.

[1426] I know, but you push yourself.

[1427] Why anybody does that?

[1428] Why do the people push himself?

[1429] Yeah.

[1430] Yeah.

[1431] Well, and why do we, why do we hunt?

[1432] Yeah.

[1433] Why do we run?

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] Why do we do the things that we do?

[1436] Because it creates engagement for me. And no, I'm not running for my life, but.

[1437] Create struggle.

[1438] I did run from my life just a few months ago, you know?

[1439] And I, you know, I look back now, and that was, that's the fucked up thing that I think so many military folks really struggle with.

[1440] And that's what Younger talked about in that book was, how would you find the, you know, the environment you were in was so precarious and it was just so tenuous.

[1441] Like, it could be wiped out in any second and yet you want to go back there, you know.

[1442] I got my, I got an avalanche on that mountain, almost dead.

[1443] Turns out I don't want to go back.

[1444] Why?

[1445] Like, why, what, what is that, that wiring that, that makes you want to.

[1446] But you know, why?

[1447] Because they want to be with their boys and their gals and like, you know, in it, in it connected, feeling like, you know, our shit is tied together.

[1448] Why do I want to go back in the mountains?

[1449] The same reason, because I'm going to go with the same boys and get the same sort of, you know, intense experience.

[1450] And I think that we miss that.

[1451] I miss that.

[1452] I really do.

[1453] Jeff's got this thing you want to teach his son.

[1454] And when we were up there in Everest, he kept on talking about teaching his son to serve others.

[1455] Be positive role model.

[1456] and serve others.

[1457] And I don't know where that comes from on him, but that's what he always talks about.

[1458] Well, I think it started with Eric, right?

[1459] Because that was the foundation of my relationship with my blind buddy.

[1460] I was a selfish dirtbag climber in J -Tree, you know, in the mid -90s.

[1461] And I met this blind dude who needed an ally.

[1462] He needed a friend.

[1463] He needed a guide.

[1464] He needed not just a guy, but he needed his teammate.

[1465] And not somebody that would, that he could trust, but somebody that would eventually trust him.

[1466] And that's pretty, that was pretty wild for him to ask at some point for a sighted person to trust a blind person on the side of a rock face or the side of a mountain.

[1467] Because, you know, it's hard enough with everything.

[1468] And you take away your vision and, you know, shit just gets amplified.

[1469] And Eric's pretty famous.

[1470] I mean, he's summited.

[1471] What is he summited?

[1472] Well, he's on the seven summons.

[1473] So the highest point I used to the seven continents.

[1474] I was on six of them with him.

[1475] And he went down to Antarctica while I was in Mexico.

[1476] school.

[1477] But then, you know, he's gone on to do a lot of stuff.

[1478] He's a, he's a bad dude, man. Motivational speaker.

[1479] I mean, he's a great dude.

[1480] Yeah, Eric Weinmear.

[1481] So, I mean, but to be honestly, he'll tell you, he'll be the first to tell you that kayaking in a, in a boat by himself down the Grand Canyon was way scarier than anything he's ever done.

[1482] Whatever.

[1483] Yeah.

[1484] You don't know what's going.

[1485] The violence and talking about chaotic environment around you, just you barely hear the dude in your ear and sometimes not at all.

[1486] all you can hear is violence and somehow he just paddles through and then you know he'll get tossed and go under and have to roll back up and it was he tells me that you know he had his own little version of PTSD from that from just get being freaked the fuck out and having nightmares how long was that travel 200 and something miles how long did that take it was a couple weeks yeah 12 days maybe something like that I think it was yeah pretty remarkable man pretty remarkable yeah I can't imagine it's a yeah it's a bad dude that But it does, it is a reoccurring theme, this thing where people are in these incredibly hostile, dangerous scenarios, and they want to go back.

[1487] They get over it, and then they want to go back.

[1488] Yeah, yeah.

[1489] The challenge, whatever you get out of it.

[1490] Is that him?

[1491] Yeah, that's him.

[1492] Oh, there's a video of him doing it?

[1493] Oh, yeah, you bet.

[1494] Was he born blind?

[1495] So he was born with a degenerative retina disease called retin.

[1496] Look at that shit.

[1497] Oh, my God.

[1498] I mean, that'll swallow you, bro.

[1499] How do you spell his last name, Jamie?

[1500] W -E -I -H -E -N -M -A -Y -E -R.

[1501] So wine is what he does in the mountains sometimes, and then mayor of the city.

[1502] Wow, that's an old image.

[1503] He's got hair right there.

[1504] Wow.

[1505] But yeah, that's him right there.

[1506] That's on Everett.

[1507] Pulling up to top.

[1508] But he's a bad man, dude.

[1509] And, you know, everybody loves him some super blind dude, you know.

[1510] And I think that's why our relationship is so strong is because I'm not afraid to give him some shit and kind of keep him grounded.

[1511] But behind the scenes, he's he blows me away I hang out of you he's a very special human being it's crazy that he could figure out how to balance that and figure out how to go left and go right well he's an amazing athlete first and foremost I mean if he was cited he could have been like a pro ball player you know he's just got that sort of body awareness and then so he's born with the degenerate retina disease so he was under he was blind legally blind but then his retina's on And at the age of 13, it was totally lights out.

[1512] And then his mama got killed in a car wreck two years later.

[1513] And so he, I mean, it was step up.

[1514] Fortunately for him, his dad is, was a Marine fighter pilot, Ed.

[1515] And Ed was not about to let his blind son sit back and let life go by.

[1516] So he grabbed him by the scuff of the neck and took him on all these deploy, all these, you know, around the world.

[1517] He got stationed in different places, and Eric just realized, like, pony up.

[1518] Ain't no time to feel.

[1519] Ain't got time for sitting around, son.

[1520] Wow.

[1521] Get up.

[1522] And he did.

[1523] And he found rock climbing, and then rock climbing turned into mountaineering, and that's when we met.

[1524] 23 years ago, 23, 4 years ago now.

[1525] I think this is all very hard for some people to process, especially people that haven't experienced very difficult things or very scary things or dangerous things, you know, that people.

[1526] that people would long to do this, to be a blind guy who's going through 270 plus miles of water in a kayak, or to be someone who wants a summit Mount Everest, or to be someone who wants to be a medic in a war zone, or to be Sebastian Younger who's out there, you know, embedded.

[1527] Embedded for years.

[1528] Right.

[1529] Years.

[1530] And I think that maybe the general population might look at that and feel like maybe it's reckless or some are super inspired and like, man, that's so great.

[1531] And then others are like, yeah, I mean, I'm down, dude.

[1532] I'm psyched that you're out there charging because then that sets the template.

[1533] And what it does, I think, for a lot of people just says, oh, that blind guy can do it.

[1534] Well, then that means I should stop feeling sorry for myself because I'm feeling low today.

[1535] There's guarantee you there's a lot of times when I don't feel like training.

[1536] I don't really feel like going out and doing something hard.

[1537] And then I'll think I need to train harder to be strong enough.

[1538] that when shit goes sideways, I'll have his back.

[1539] Yeah, and when you do train for something like Everest, how do you prepare for something like that?

[1540] Climb.

[1541] Just climb.

[1542] Up and down, up and down.

[1543] Lots of weight.

[1544] Like a place like, you know, you go to Boulder or somewhere in the mountains above it or something like that.

[1545] Bigger mountains, yeah, like way up in the hills.

[1546] And like big long days, like long days, like 10, 12 hour days.

[1547] That's how you train.

[1548] Yeah.

[1549] And how many does you do a week?

[1550] I don't, you know, I mean, two or three probably, like big long days.

[1551] I try to, you know, get broke the fuck off at least, you know, a couple times a week.

[1552] Right.

[1553] Where I'm like, woof, okay.

[1554] And are you carrying weight on your pack and doing the whole deal?

[1555] Those days of carrying big heavy weight, I've kind of stopped doing that and I just go because I like to feel a little bit more free.

[1556] There was a time when I would put on a big pack, you know, and just to feel that weight on my traps.

[1557] Joe's only asking is he's experiencing 45 pounds.

[1558] He has a new vest.

[1559] He was testing out the other day.

[1560] Yeah, I think I saw.

[1561] Well, I'm asking, because it's crazy how 45 pounds is just not much at all.

[1562] No, but it's a lot.

[1563] When you start walking up hills.

[1564] It's a lot.

[1565] But, you know, some of these guys are probably carrying way more than that, right?

[1566] Like 60, 70.

[1567] Oh, on Denali?

[1568] Like, a Denali pack's close to 100 as a guide.

[1569] A hundred down pack.

[1570] That's insane.

[1571] The clients would typically have, oh, it's a 100 pound pack and a 20 -30 -pound sled.

[1572] Those were Denali days.

[1573] And that's at 12, 13, 14 ,000 feet.

[1574] That's not Bell Canyon.

[1575] Yeah.

[1576] What are these guys built like?

[1577] Well, I mean, the ones who are good are pretty narrow.

[1578] How the fuck are they carrying that much weight?

[1579] I carried that much weight for years and years.

[1580] I mean, I was a buck 50 back then, you know, and would carry 100 pounds.

[1581] And it hurt, you know, but you just, I mean, remember, mountaineering is slog.

[1582] I mean, when you're really moving, like, on that kind of mountain, it's a slog.

[1583] It's really slow.

[1584] And then you've got a technical terrain, and you best lighten your load.

[1585] that's you're not carrying 100 you know 100 pounds then you're carrying you know or light light pack light is right you know ounces make pounds pounds make pain right and what you got you got to feel like someone carrying a hundred pounds you have to build up to that no yeah yeah for sure there's all these weird stabilizing muscles and your hip muscles and your lower back and oh man i just i couldn't do it now i mean i couldn't do it i'm just i get sore thinking about it but i mean this was back in my 20s when i was doing you know back to back to nolly trips and you didn't know any better I didn't know any better.

[1586] And it was like, this is fun.

[1587] It was fun.

[1588] And it was cool.

[1589] I used to do a lot of expeditions because I was the quintessential dirt back just so I could go eat, you know, so I could get fed. And I didn't even care.

[1590] I mean, I'd have done it for free.

[1591] You were going to go on expeditions just so you could get some food?

[1592] Just to eat to know I was going to eat some dehydrated food.

[1593] I mean, I was the, I was living in my van, man. How did you start out being this guy?

[1594] I grew up in, I was born in North Carolina in the Smokies.

[1595] and I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, and my parents are not adventurous at all.

[1596] But, you know, my dad and mom were both just working, you know, middle class, you know, hard working middle class folks.

[1597] And I was just a restless punk, you know.

[1598] I was just super restless getting in trouble all the time.

[1599] And, you know, I got arrested several times before I was 18 and just bad, just restless and dumb, like most of us, I think.

[1600] and went to school at Tennessee for a year and got a 1 .2, my first semester, and a 0 .6.

[1601] It's possible to get a 0 .6.

[1602] Wow.

[1603] Yep, I had a D in racquetball.

[1604] No. No. True story.

[1605] You just weren't paying attention?

[1606] No, I was drinking brown liquor and chasing women.

[1607] Hmm.

[1608] And I was good at it.

[1609] I was good at both those things.

[1610] And so I failed out and then I moved to Colorado in 1989 and moved to Boulder and was just a bunch of hippies.

[1611] And like I was into the Grateful Dead and I was, you know, tapping into some good fun things and growing my head.

[1612] And I fell in with a group of climbers pretty quick off who were a couple years older than me. And they basically took me under their wing and sort of gave me this apprenticeship and taught me how to not get dead.

[1613] wow yeah polar's a real weird spot right there's like fly fishing there and kayaking and hikers and like everyone's riding mountain bikes and everyone's fit it's weird everybody's fit we're the fat people it's there's no fat people in balmer it's so weird no no you walk around everybody's got like solomons on and shit like everybody's coming in from a workout yeah yeah whole foods just everybody's stinky and buying some granola you're all sinewy and shit ranchers there's a lot of people so i just I've lived in Boulder on and off for 28 years.

[1614] I went to medical school in Philadelphia at Drexel, Medical College, Pennsylvania.

[1615] Other than that, I've been in and out of Boulder for 28 years.

[1616] And we're moving to Evergreen.

[1617] We're moving to Evergreen, Colorado, which is a super sweet spot.

[1618] Yeah, it's gorgeous.

[1619] The reason I'm leaving Boulder is because it's just pretty congested, man. A lot of people live there.

[1620] That's hilarious.

[1621] A lot of people live there.

[1622] And now, I'm riding on the 405 here.

[1623] Two hundred thousand people?

[1624] I don't know how y 'all do it, man. One of the people I was talking to a Lanai, she was saying that she's going to bring her nieces to California.

[1625] They've never been outside of Maui.

[1626] They've been to Lanai and Maui.

[1627] That's it.

[1628] That's it.

[1629] So they haven't even been to fucking Honolulu.

[1630] And now she's going to fly them to Los Angeles.

[1631] They're going to go to Disneyland.

[1632] Universal.

[1633] Like, what in the fuck?

[1634] She'd give them some mushroom to see what happens.

[1635] You don't need to.

[1636] That would just be over late.

[1637] I remember when I was a kid and we went from New York to or from Boston rather than New York for.

[1638] Or some, I think it was for a karate tournament or something like that, but we were driving up the West Side Highway and you see the city looming in the distance like the Death Star.

[1639] And I remember thinking, what in the fuck is this?

[1640] Like, how are there, how many buildings?

[1641] Boston's a city, but it's not that kind of city.

[1642] It's not Manhattan.

[1643] Yeah, Manhattan is something very unique and special.

[1644] Death Star.

[1645] Yeah, and you pull up to it, you're like, what is this?

[1646] It was so intimidating.

[1647] Well, that could go either way for those kids, right?

[1648] that could just be fascinated by the energy or bug the fuck out and you can't wait to get back to the line.

[1649] Well, the amount of stimuli that you get in an environment like that is just overwhelming.

[1650] But you're like Boulder's too much.

[1651] It's too much.

[1652] Too many people, man. There's almost 100 ,000.

[1653] We can't do this any longer.

[1654] I don't like to sit in my truck.

[1655] I like to move, you know.

[1656] If I'm going to go drive somewhere, I want to drive there and park and get out and go in and do my deal and come back.

[1657] And then, you know, the trails are pretty, pretty populated too you know you go climbing you've got to wait in line um sometimes you know like you go up like like roped climbing yeah like when people are going up sides you better you better get there at dawn really get up yeah that's it's a lot of people getting busy out in the woods which is cool but you know i'm i'm just feeling like you know there's a lot of a lot of folks turns out the older i get the less people he wants to talk to but do you think also that's you know you're involved in these intense situations, like being in Iraq or like being on Everson, sometimes you just want to sit back and process it all.

[1658] Yeah, and sit on the rocking chair.

[1659] I like to, you know, I want to mow my yard on a tractor.

[1660] I want to drive my tractor around and, you know, sip on a beer.

[1661] I'm a southern boy at heart, and I like quiet things.

[1662] I know a bunch of guys who've moved out there for that very reason.

[1663] Yeah, it makes sense.

[1664] And so we're moving there in a couple weeks.

[1665] That's awesome.

[1666] And the landscape couldn't be prettier.

[1667] It's nice.

[1668] beautiful it's real nice how the winners brutal ain't gold hill winners though no that's way worse but it's brutal you know no it's real you gotta get ready yeah we live on a dirt road holla yeah out there huh I pulled up to Joe's house there's an old power wagon his old house in Boulder an old power wagon with a snow plow and there's a couple snow machines out there and I'm pulling my do you know why those things are there Joe because you gotta pile yourself out I'm not scared of snow man When I lived in Boston, I drove a van.

[1669] I drove delivered newspapers.

[1670] I drove 365 days a year.

[1671] So I drove every fucking day.

[1672] Every time a blizzard hit, every time snow hit, I'm not scared snow.

[1673] I know how to drive in snow.

[1674] I mean, it's not fun to get stuck, and you will get stuck.

[1675] But it doesn't bother me. It doesn't freak me out.

[1676] But to someone who's never been in snow, it ain't the place.

[1677] Right.

[1678] But if you had to choose between, like, it's a tough call.

[1679] Like would you rather live in like Phoenix right now?

[1680] I heard it's a hundred and twenty four degrees that they're they're canceling flights because it's so hot they're canceling flights yeah you know I mean I don't just something about that cold and snow too that's like really peaceful like there's something that people don't like I remember when I was a kid one of the things that I really liked about snow is especially when I had to deliver newspapers it's like I would have to be out there and you would hear nothing because the snow muffles all the sound.

[1681] So it's like you get a kind of peace and quiet that you don't, no one's driving because it's, you know, there's two feet of snow.

[1682] So you're out there and it's just nothing, nothing.

[1683] And everything's soft.

[1684] Now you hear there, watch, watch, watch for your feet on the ground and that's it.

[1685] You know, it's like you.

[1686] And then I think people that live in those environments, like live in the cold, you appreciate summer for real.

[1687] Like you really appreciate summer.

[1688] out here every day's summer nobody gives a shit it's 75 degrees and perfect in january yeah you know and you go into boulder and on the c u campus you know like you get a 60 degree 50 degree day in the spring and all the bitches just go down to their daisy dukes oh you know like they're like i'm gonna put up those feathers yeah that scent fly whoa yeah wow so what's next for you man What are you going to do now?

[1689] I don't know.

[1690] We're going to figure it out between now and next spring, because spring's when I start to get the itch, you know, to go do something.

[1691] So how do you guys work it out?

[1692] Do you, like, come to him with an idea, or does he, do you guys sit down and talk about it?

[1693] Well, we can't talk about our potential.

[1694] Well, he just pitched something to me yesterday that's pretty interesting and adventurous and fun and curious and a mystery to a bit of a...

[1695] Jeff's good TV.

[1696] I mean, he's a good person in general, but he's also a really good TV.

[1697] a mystery two guys have already died trying to do it oh jesus um check check yeah and it's pretty dangerous and i want to put a team together and jeff leading the team and see we can go pull it off oh my god dude well listen don't die and uh come back when you live and we'll talk about it come back when i live yeah yes i like that idea it's fun living turns out oh yeah i enjoy life and do you enjoy it more when you come back yeah yeah once again like gratitude tour like you know like i love it all i don't my kid's a total slob and like really just drop shit and makes mess everywhere and i'm like i love that boy you know like you're a little fuck up and i just love you well just remember what you were like right exactly yeah boy i mean it's it's that's that's the universe saying what's up bitch yeah here you go what are you going to do with this kid you're going to take him to Everest?

[1698] Yeah.

[1699] He's a little long -haired kid that's just trying to find his way, and I can relate.

[1700] You know, he's trying to figure it out.

[1701] No one just knows their way.

[1702] There is no, everyone finds their way.

[1703] No, you have to.

[1704] I'm still looking, man. You always will be.

[1705] Yeah, and that's the good thing.

[1706] I think that's part of what I'm doing, why I'm doing it.

[1707] I'm still looking.

[1708] 100%, you know, I'm still trying to figure it out, and I'm trying to do the best I can, helping people where I can.

[1709] I don't have a wide array of skills, but, I know how to help people when they're having a hard go.

[1710] That's a great path, though.

[1711] I mean, the path of service, the path of helping people and the gratitude and the experience that you get from that, it's very positive.

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] Yeah.

[1714] I mean, I feel like if I can instill any of that into my boy, like, I win.

[1715] You know, it's be grateful.

[1716] Like live, live a grateful life.

[1717] And by living that, what does that mean?

[1718] is like, you know, pay it forward, show gratitude, show love, show compassion, and allow people to be the best version of them and do the best you can to make them better, you know.

[1719] Well said.

[1720] And I didn't know that until I met Eric, to be honest with you.

[1721] He was a catalyst for all that.

[1722] Wow.

[1723] That's amazing that one person can change the course of your life that much just by existing and being around them experiencing how they navigate life.

[1724] Yeah, that's what I learned.

[1725] Well, listen, man, thanks for doing this.

[1726] Really appreciate it.

[1727] I'm on.

[1728] Thanks for bringing him on.

[1729] We'll do it again back when you guys survived because you're going to survive, right?

[1730] Yeah.

[1731] Yeah, you know.

[1732] Okay.

[1733] Yeah, it's not bad bad.

[1734] We'll do it again and we'll talk about it.

[1735] All right.

[1736] That was fun, brother.

[1737] Thanks for having us.

[1738] Thank you, Joe.

[1739] See ya.